


Captains of Industry

by 221b_hound



Series: Captains of Industry [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Hipsters, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Australia, Awkward Flirting, Bathing/Washing, Blow Jobs, Coming In Pants, First Dates, First Kiss, First Time, Frottage, Grooming, Inspired by the Sherlock Special photograph, Melbourne hipster cafe scene, Morning After, Morning Cuddles, Multi, Panicking Sherlock, Patient John, Rimming, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings, Sherlock Makes Deductions, Television Watching, Undressing, moustache sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-09 13:55:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4351433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captains of Industry is the most hipster of Melbourne hipster cafes. It's bespoke suits, artisan shoes, sculpted facial hair and the most exquisite food and coffee all the way. Sherlock Holmes, Digital Security Consultant, has become a regular patron. And one day, perhaps one day soon, he will work out how to successfully flirt with the hot barista, John Watson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Spirit of 1895

**Author's Note:**

> Captains of Industry is a real Melbourne cafe, and really does have all those artisans working there, though the tailor has moved on. I'll update ratings and tags as I go along - partly because I don't quite know where it's leading, yet.
> 
> Like [Heart and Hearth](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4308990), this story is dedicated to the new stache!John and slickedbackhair!Sherlock.  
> 
> 
> This whole thing is the result of a conversation I had with my husband about the Sherlock Special photograph, in which I posited that John looked like the perfect Melbourne hipster barista. I then assigned roles to the cast. And then this happened. I have no idea where it's leading. Well, apart from JOhnlock sex, possibly at the window overlooking Elizabeth Street.
> 
> Let's make that 'most definitely at the window overlooking Elizabeth Street'.
> 
> Just as soon as Sherlock works out how to flirt.

In one of Melbourne’s ubiquitous alleyways there is a hipster café to outshine all hipster cafes. Captains of Industry is on the first floor of an old building, reached via 17 steps from the alley but overlooking the 19th Century General Post Office on Elizabeth (now an H&M, to the dismay of some Melburnians who remember when it was actually a public building full of post boxes and beautiful arches and the elegance of history that was yet functional in the modern world).

In this most hipster of hipster cafes, the owners have embraced the ‘Spirit of 1895’ – the whole first floor space is inhabited by craftsmen and women.

Mrs Hudson, the owner of Captains of Industry, is also the cook. Chef? Magician of comestibles? She works behind the counter with the barista and whips up small meals, perfect sandwiches, tiny cakes and a home-made ginger beer that makes Top Ten Beverage listicles all over Melbourne and sometimes in Sydney.

There is Mycroft Holmes who came from England to Australia on educational exchange during his final year of his Doctorate in Political Science, to access primary documents on the development of the Westminster System in Colonial Democracy and stayed for the escape it offered from his oppressive father, for the excellent food and for the strapping Aussie retro-biker who has been his partner for fifteen years now. He gave up politics and, with Biker Boy’s encouragement, explored his natural passion for fabric. Mycroft Holmes makes bespoke suits now. He has a reputation, and is selective with his clientele.

His Biker Boy is now a Biker Man, still beautiful with his hair silvered, still with that warm and stunning smile and those soft brown eyes. Greg Lestrade was always passionate about his motor bikes, but he’s passionate about other things too. The cobbler’s craft and working with leather, which he learned from his grandfather; rock and roll, and Mycroft Holmes. He makes gorgeous custom shoes and leather accessories. He’s not a bad pastry chef, either, though mostly he makes his baked goods for his delectable Mycroft.

Molly Hooper has a certain gift with follicles. She likes being creative with men’s hair, and recent decades have given her much more to work with. Creative shaving, elegant coiffures, braiding and dyes. She prepared an entire contingent of Hobbit fans to cosplay as the dwarves, weaving their own hair into complex hair confections that were the envy of all who saw them. She can do a simple buzz cut and make it a work of art, too. Her own hair changes with the season and her mood. One summer she wore it buzz cut on one side, and the other side, dyed black and red, she wore long and straight. At the moment she’s all 50s retro, Bettie Page, though she’s less sultry and more sunny. Her girlfriend, Sally, plays guitar in a punk-pop retro blues band called Freak, and all of her clothes are artistically torn. Sally can be a bit possessive. Molly actually mostly likes that. She likes a bit of rough; Sally likes a bit of sweet. They adore each other.

The barista is, like Mycroft, an escapee from London. John Watson came out on furlough from the army one year, and the minute he was mustered out (well, invalided out, but he doesn’t like to talk about that) he sodded right back off to Sydney. He bummed around the beaches for a while, but when that got dull he went down to Melbourne to see a mate’s band play in a musical festival. He only went back to Sydney long enough to grab his meagre gear and head south. He loves Melbourne, though he’d be hard pressed to say why. It’s different to Sydney, not that Sydney is bad, they’re just… different. And he likes Melbourne’s kind of different. He likes the changeable weather and the less frantic pace of life; he likes the sports scene, and the bar scene, the food and the cafes. He likes the wide open skies and all that sunny blue that reminded him in the best way of his service in the Middle East without all the ugly bits of being shot at. And shot. But he likes it when it rains, too, because that isn’t like Afghanistan and being shot, and it makes him think a little bit of London. Melbourne captures an in-betweenness that he feels reflects the landscape in his head and heart.

John makes excellent coffee. His family thinks that’s a joke, but he became aware very early on that in Melbourne, people are more impressed by a great barista than a great barrister. Even barristers come looking for John’s coffee.

John has embraced the 1890s hipster ethic even more firmly than his fellows at Captains of Industry. He has the perfect moustache for it, and Mycroft has made him two three-piece suits which are a perfect fit, and he bought a terrific Homberg hat at a market recently and he’s pretty damned happy, all up.

Especially when Mycroft Holmes’s hot brother, Sherlock, comes by for coffee, which he does almost every day that Captains of Industry is open. He invariably has a long black (single origin) with two sugars. Sometimes he has a lime-and-vodka-infused portabella mushroom and pesto bagel. Sherlock works at the counter that overlooks Elizabeth Street, tapping intensively away at his computer or his phone or, captivatingly, he sits with a dreamy look on his face and _thinks_. Sherlock Holmes is a Digital Security Consultant and a craftsman in his own right. He is tall and he wears gorgeous suits (a little too tight) that emphasise his fantastic arse, and his fantastic shoulders, and his long long long legs and his elegant, nimble, beautiful hands and…

And yes. John H Watson is fucking besotted with the guy, who was sent out to Australia some years ago to fetch home the wandering Elder Brother and used the opportunity to cut those despised family ties himself. John only met him a month ago, of course, but every day of that month, Sherlock's presence has been the highlight of his day.

As for Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Cyber Detective (as he has been labelled in some industry magazines) - he came to his brother’s place of work one day to have a seam mended (and to squabble with his brother; it’s one of their hobbies) and took one look at the barista and decided to stay for coffee.

He told the barista things the barista already knew about himself – that he had served in Afghanistan and was invalided out after a terrible shoulder wound. That he'd had hasty toast and jam for breakfast, washed down with tea. He told the barista things he didn't know as well. That the evidence of breakfast was a spot of jam on his cuff that was hastily and imperfectly cleaned away. That the barista's flatmate had two cats (hairs on the trouser legs), and a drinking habit  -and was stealing from him - and finished the demonstration by telling said barista he should change his phone access PIN to stop said flatmate from using the phone to arrange drug deals, before the police found out. And then he told the barista his PIN, to prove the point.

Instead of telling him to piss off, which was the usual result of demonstrations like this, the barista laughed, thanked him, changed the PIN, allowed Sherlock to purge the phone of incriminating data, and then called a locksmith to arrange to change the locks and turf That Bastard Harry out on his rotten arse.

Then the barista, named John, gave Sherlock a free coffee (which was perfect) and one of Mrs Hudson’s mini lemon meringue pies and told him he was amazing.

Sherlock has been back every day since.

Sherlock Holmes is a very smart man. A genius in fact. There’s not an online security system he can’t break. He can look at people and know at least half their life story, though he’s not always smart enough to keep that information to himself. He is quick-witted and a motor mouth and never quite comfortable and often too defensive because he has never been like other people, ever ever ever, and on the whole other people don’t like that. They don’t like _him_.

But John Watson, barista, seems to like him. He smiles, anyway, and his blue eyes light up, and he laughs at Sherlock’s jokes.

Sherlock hopes very much one day that he will be able to successfully flirt with John Watson.

He very much hopes that today will be that day.


	2. Flirting 101

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock wants to flirt. He does it badly. Luckily, John is better at it. But then Sherlock admits he knows the scent of John's moustache wax. That is probably a fail in Flirting 101.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should be writing a novel. I'll get back to that now. And do more of this next week.  
> 

The Captains of Industry coffee bar is busy for the morning rush – coffee, bacon and avocado bagels, satay-infused tofu ones for the vegetarians, and coffee after coffee after coffee. John Watson gets every single order for his regulars correct without asking, but is on the ball enough for those who like to switch things round from time to time.

It’s a good morning, but it shifts from good to great when Sherlock Holmes comes in, earlier than usual. Sherlock’s Crumpler bag is bursting with computer tech and papers, and he is typing with intense concentration into his phone like it’s an Olympic sport and he’s three lengths ahead to win Gold Gold Gold for Australia. Or England. Or you know, whoever.

Sherlock is looking like a gorgeously long drink of water today. Impossibly tall and impossibly elegant, suit pristine, grey eyes bright and keen, dark hair combed back, severe and sexy. It looks slick and untouchable, which is a shame, because John the barista has the urge to touch it until it’s a glorious mess.

‘Here you go,’ says John, placing Sherlock’s coffee on the counter.

Sherlock looks up from the phone. ‘I haven’t ordered yet.’

‘Long black, two sugars,’ says John, ‘Venezualan single blend today. And a pear friand, Mrs Hudson’s special. They’re your favourite, aren’t they?’

Sherlock gives John a look as though he’s an intriguing specimen, but suddenly smiles. ‘You remember.’

‘You’re memorable,’ says John, smiling back. His carefully trimmed moustache does not at all hide the sunniness of the smile underneath it. Several people in the line stop to look. They haven’t seen that smile before, and some of them have been trying for weeks or months to get him to look like that.

Three women in the queue realise that the object of their desire plays for the other team, and wonder if they should switch to Little Mule down the street, or Brother Baba Budan around the corner. Both places do good coffee. They have plenty of time to consider their options. The tall, gangly, oddly pretty bloke and the gorgeous hipster barista are still smiling at each other.

The tall bloke’s smile gets a bit… fixed, and he looks down at his phone, then up at the barista. ‘Must dash. This site won’t hack itself. Laterz.’ He throws a red twenty dollar note on the counter, snatches up the coffee and cake and hustles over to the counter that runs in front of the window overlooking the Elizabeth Street traffic. He huddles into a corner and pulls out his computer.

He doesn’t look at the barista again. He gazes at the road and the trams running up and down the street, dinging their little dings at the traffic, and then remembers the site that won’t hack itself. He proceeds to smash away at the keyboard like he owes it for killing his whole tribe.

*

Two hours later, Sherlock is still typing, but when he presses Enter at last, he smiles and leans back in the chair. Site hacked, site analysed, digital back doors locked, cyber window cracks sealed, metaphorical cannons armed to repel boarders. He’s earned his three thousand dollars today.

He sighs.

God, he’s bored. It’s 10:30 a.m. and already he. is. so. bored.

A clack at his elbow does not really surprise him – he saw John the Perfect Barista walking his way with coffee and a glass, and he could tell that the coffee wasn’t for anyone else, so it had to be for him, though he hasn’t asked for one, but he is ready for one. For coffee. He’s ready for coffee again. And also the hot barista named John, who laughed and called him brilliant instead of calling him a ‘fuckin’ weirdo’ or just plain ‘dickhead’ and he needs to stop staring now.

‘Second cup of the morning, just like you asked. Or would have, if you hadn’t been caught up.’

‘No friand?”

_Oh, smooth, Sherlock. **Smooth as** , as the Australians would say._

_What, as they would also say, a dickhead._

‘All gone, sorry. I’ll ask Martha to bake you up a special batch for tomorrow.’

‘Don’t go to any trouble on my account.’

Sherlock turns back to his computer screen, and heartily wishes it would behave like one of those screens in the stupid films his stupid brother’s stupid boyfriend likes to watch, and swallow him whole into some other dimension. One where he is cool and sassy and has excellent social skills, instead of being as well versed in the social niceties as any typical IT geek of the '80s albeit with, he concedes, much better dress sense.

He risks a glance at the window; at the reflection. He himself looks like a gormless prat. John the Perfect Barista, on the other hand, looks golden and gorgeous and edible, clad in a smart brown suit and with his gorgeous blond hair combed to one side and the crisp moustache waxed to elegance, the reflection of it just as desirable as the real thing. He is regarding the back of Sherlock’s head with a startled expression. Startled but not… not offended. Oh well, that’s something, Sherlock supposes.

Sherlock sips his coffee aggressively, burning the tip of his tongue, then shoves the cup away while he activates the algorithms for his second client of the day. He has begun to type furiously when he senses body heat near his elbow. He glances up. John the Perfect Barista’s reflection has moved closer instead of away.

Sherlock looks up at the man himself.

‘I forgot.’ John places a small glass of sparkling mineral water next to Sherlock’s coffee. ‘Your water.’ At Sherlock’s continued questioning glance, he adds, ‘We’ve decided to serve black coffee European style. With mineral water.’

‘By “we” you mean “you”, after speaking to your new flatmate who has returned from a trip to Italy. She likes you, though not in a sexual manner.’

‘How did you know about Irene?’

Sherlock enumerates. ‘Your current lapel badge – Milan Fashion Week 2015 – comes from last week’s fashion and accessories festival in that fair city, and I know you weren’t there, because you were here, making coffee for the discerning masses. You placed a postcard on the kitchen board last week, however, from Milan, and showed it to Mrs Hudson as proof that your new flatmate is more considerate than, and I quote, ‘the thieving bastard that I saw off two weeks ago’. You also made comments to Mycroft this week about your good luck in finding a new flatmate so soon, though you aren’t sure whether you like it or not that she says she will travel so frequently, leaving you to ‘rattle around the flat on your own’. As for her non-sexual interest in you, besides the lapel pin, she has brought you a tin of Italian hair wax for your use. It seems an intimate type of gift, but given that your interest is in men rather than women, and you would have to be blind and stupid to miss that fact, to anyone who pays the slightest attention to how long your glances linger over each of the genders in the queue…’

At this point, two women hoping to pull a barista boyfriend make the choice to frequent other coffee shops in the immediate vicinity, and depart.

‘… so the gift appears more in the lines of assisting you to enhance your personal grooming, one fashionista to another. I know the moustache wax is new because it has a different scent and a slightly different sheen to your usual brand, and is in fact the mild citrus scent favoured by an exclusive Italian brand of men’s hair products. You might have purchased it locally from an importer, but you still have half a tin of your usual brand under the counter, which you use to refresh your whiskers after the lunch rush, and you are not by nature a wasteful man – I can see that you have had Greg Lestrade effect several repairs on your shoes where your limp makes the soles wear unevenly. This, then, would appear to be a gift that you are trying out in order to please the giver. The recently returned flatmate, Irene. Not a week after her return, and given that you keep an eye out for changing trends in coffee, café culture and international touches to set your establishment apart from others, and how seriously you take your work, you choose to introduce a classically Italian habit of mineral water with black coffee. Of course the idea is yours, gleaned from discussions with your new jetsetting flatmate.’

Sherlock finally takes a breath, and reviews what he has said, and then holds the breath in, wide-eyed, waiting for the ‘dickhead’ or ‘weirdo’ accusation to manifest. Who notices the scent of a nearly perfect stranger’s moustache wax, for God’s sake?

John simply beams at him. ‘Hey, that’s fantastic. It's fucking brilliant how you notice all that and put it all together. This stuff does smell different, I’ll give you that. Not sure I like it. I don’t _hate_ it. Takes some getting used to. My usual wax has a pretty neutral scent, though there’s just that hint of beeswax in it which is nice. So you like the mineral water thing, yeah?’

Sherlock blinks. ‘Yes.’

John’s sunny smile continues unabated. ‘Me too. I like the interaction between the brew and the bubbles. It doesn’t work with a milk coffee of course, but it enhances the flavour of a really good bean, and this Venezualan single origin benefits immensely from it. It depends on the mineral water too – I spent hours last night taste testing different combinations, and I was so wired from the caffeine I think I saw or maybe even created an alternative reality in my head – but I find this has the best balance of minerals, for this roast.’

Sherlock blinks even more stupidly, captivated by the barista’s perfect blue eyes.

‘So. Ah. Sorry. I can go on a bit. Professional hazard.’ John the Perfect Barista, embarrassed, starts to move away.

‘I like mineral water.’

_Idiot idiot idiot._

‘Me too.’ John the Perfect Barista smiles again, less sunny and more puzzled.

Sherlock sips the coffee. Sips the mineral water.

‘This is indeed the perfect combination.’

Sunny smile back at 10000 watts.

 _Watsons_ , Sherlock thinks. _The brightness of 10000 Watsons._

_Idiot idiot idiot._

‘Glad you think so.’

‘You should stick to the old wax,’ Sherlock adds, ‘It smells better’.

_Too intrusive. Stop smelling his moustache wax. IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT._

Covering his desperate shame at his failure to flirt yet again, Sherlock returns his attention to the security puzzle before him.

‘Yeah. I think so too. I might save this up for when I grow a beard. If I grow a beard.’ John’s voice is warm and friendly, without even the slightest undercurrent of ‘dickhead’, though there’s a pleasant timbre of amusement. For a change, Sherlock doesn’t feel like it’s at his expense. If anything, John the Perfect Barista just sounds… pleased.

Sherlock imagines John Watson with his perfectly waxed moustache and a perfectly groomed beard, gloriously lush and probably with some red in with the blond, and thinks the only way John the Perfect Barista could be more perfect after that would be if he was naked.

He chokes on a sip of coffee and spluttering, eyes tearing up, he turns away from the object of his desire to work.

He feels a hand on his back, patting it.

‘You all right?’

‘Yes. Thank you. Yes.’

‘Good.’

And then the hand, and the man attached to it, is gone.

Sherlock watches John’s reflection leave.

Then he sees John look back at him, and their eyes meet in the glass, and John smiles again.

10000 watts of smile. Just for him.

Sherlock smiles back, and forgets to hate the way his mouth goes crooked and dimpled, in a manner which a disgruntled boyfriend once told him looked like a capital U being crushed by parentheses, and what does that even _mean_?

He forgets he doesn’t like his uncontrolled smile, because John’s smile dials up another 10000 Watsons, and he winks – he **_winks_** – at Sherlock and goes back to the espresso machine.

Sherlock takes only half an hour to complete his next site security test.

He still charges them the $3000 of course. He’s happy, not stupid.


	3. The Gentleman’s Guide to First Kisses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John reveals his Secret Insider Information as to why he thinks he stands a chance with perennially awkward Sherlock Holmes. He formulates a plan. He sees it through! For a gentleman is always prepared! And gentlemanly!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this one while actually sitting in Captains of Industry.
> 
> Please note that the place is real, but I have nicked foodstuffs from cafes all over Melbourne to serve here, so don't think you'll get those friands or bagels here. But they do an excellent three-cheese and tomato toastie.
> 
> And look at the sign on their door! It's like they read my mind:
> 
>  

Sherlock leaves Captains of Industry in a whirl of muttered curses and sweeping coat. But he pauses briefly at the counter to say, 'Good coffee today, John.' Then he winces and continues sweeping. 

'See you tomorrow!' John calls out. Sherlock doesn’t turn around, but he raises a hand and waggles his fingers before fleeing down the stairs. 

When John takes coffee to the artisans in the side rooms, his upcurled moustache looks like it's smiling along with the rest of him. Greg and Mycroft are working and talking in Mycroft's studio. Mycroft is hand-stitching a new suit collar, the purple thread a natty and perfect contrast with the dark grey fabric. Greg is polishing an elegant shoe to perfection, its unfinished mate on the floor at his side.

John deposits a sugarless long macchiato on a side table for Greg.

'You're chirpy,' Greg observes. 

John deposits Mycroft's café latte, one sugar, with a flourish on the table beside Greg’s. 'Am I? I suppose I am. Had a lovely conversation with Sherlock this morning.'

Mycroft sips his coffee and gives John a sceptical look over the top of the foam. 'Sherlock came in with his face hidden in his phone as usual, was rude and graceless, impertinently deduced your private life and made inappropriately personal remarks about your grooming habits before being inept, then rude again. He proceeded to ignore you for an hour and then implied that you usually make bad coffee but today was an exception before dashing out. Rudely.'

'He wasn't rude,' insists John.  

'You will accept inept?'

'I'll give you that one.'

'I don't know what you see in him.'

'Well, your taste runs to Gregster here, so I'm not surprised. But he’s incredibly smart, incredibly gorgeous and when he’s not tripping over his own tongue, extremely eloquent. Anyway, he wasn't impertinent. He was brilliant.’

‘You, Johnno, have got it bad,’ observes Greg with a grin.

‘You must have, to persist in the face of such lack of encouragement.’

‘You’re kidding me, right?’ Seeing from his expression that Mycroft is not kidding – well, he’s not much of a kidder, and he doesn’t even find Judith Lucy funny, which surely means that he is dead inside – John enumerates the points of encouragement.

'He doesn't talk to anyone else, except you two and sometimes Molly, but he talks to me, and he’s always interesting. He _smiles_ at me. He is confident and smooth as anything when he's doing that deduction thing, which is hot by the way, and it's amazing, and when I tell him so he blushes, which is fucking adorable. And today I caught him checking me out in the reflection. Plus I have secret insider knowledge about the mating habits of Holmeses. Greg here told me all about how he practically had to wrap his dick in a red ribbon and perform a lewd mating dance before you twigged he was flirting with you. Lucky for you he'd worked out that your form of flirting was to ply him with books and vintage rock albums.’

John finally notices that Mycroft has gone a really very charming shade of neon red while Greg grins in the smuggest fashion possible. In this way, John knows that there was no 'practically' and a lot more 'literally' about the notorious ribbon dance, and that it was probably not a one-off incident. 

John tucks the idea away for later, in case a Ribbon Bedecked Dancing Cock Protocol becomes necessary with Sherlock. He almost hopes so. He thinks his cock will look great wrapped in a red ribbon. He’d certainly like to know what Sherlock’s looks like, in red ribbon, or tiny panties, or draped just in open sunlight in the enclosed courtyard out back of the house, maybe shaded a little by the jacaranda tree in the corner. Wouldn’t want that, or what looks like the plushest arse on the planet, to get sunburnt.

He imagines rubbing sunblock into Sherlock’s plush arse and his mouth opens a little and he licks his lips.

Then John sees Mycroft and Greg both regarding him like they can see the lewd mating dance his brain is projecting on the back of his retina, so he clears his throat and lets them have their alone time.

When Sally shows up a few minutes later – Molly’s lunchtime is Sally’s breakfast hour, in time-honoured jobbing muso’s fashion – he dutifully makes coffee for them. Flat white with extra foam for Molly; long macchiato, three sugars for Sally’s first coffee, chased with a strong skinny latte one sugar. She’s grumpy as buggery without the two, though Molly only giggles at Sally’s scowling and Sally tolerates it because as soon as coffee #2 is down, she’ll get a thorough snog, and it’s worth it.

‘You’re chirpy,’ observes Sally.

‘Sherlock smiled at him today,’ says Molly.

Sally rolls her eyes so hard it ought to be filmed and made into a Tumblr reaction gif.

John jerks his chin up, runs a knuckle under both sides of his moustache and fixes her with a steady eye. ‘Today a smile, tomorrow a kiss.’

‘You’re ambitious.’

John didn’t mean it as _literally_ tomorrow, but he wouldn’t say no, either. Maybe he should … well, not a Ribbon Bedecked Dancing Cock Protocol, but something to broadcast his interest a bit more obviously might be good. Or it might send Sherlock into a panic.

But John is good in a crisis, and his first aid skills are fuckin’ awesome, honed under literal enemy fire, so if Sherlock’s going to have a panic attack about flirting and kissing, John’s definitely the man to have it with.

The click of a phone camera interrupts his train of thought. Molly has taken a picture of Sally’s profile, Sally’s corkscrew curls limned with light from the main window, her brown eyes wide, her mouth crooked in that sassy-sexy way that drives Molly crazy in the best way.

Molly adds a sepia filter to the picture and Instagrams that shit, hashtagged like an explosion in a fencing factory. #SallyDonovan #Freak #hotleadguitarist #mygirl #sassysexy #fuckyeahrockandroll.

Sally laughs.

John notices they’re wearing matching T-shirts then. Sally’s says _I am not fucking the lead guitarist; I **am** the fucking lead guitarist_. Molly’s says, **_I’m_** _fucking the lead guitarist._

John leaves them taking and uploading photos of each other in a kind of Instagram Race of Public Adoration, and spends the rest of the day between brews thinking how he might make his intentions clearer to Sherlock Holmes.

*

The next morning, Mrs Hudson has already opened up when John arrives. Mycroft is already hard at work too, with fabric thrown over a polished wooden table in the main café. He’s cutting it ready to begin work in his studio.

The cloth is very fine wool, charcoal with the hint of red running through it. The pattern is big in the shoulder, tiny in the waist, and instead of trousers the design is for a full skirt, shin length.

‘It will be gathered up on one side,’ Mycroft says to the unasked question, ‘And tailored to precise measurements. This is not a business suit, John.’

‘New client?’ John asks.

‘Your flatmate, Ms Adler,’ Mycroft informs him, ‘She is very exacting.’

‘You’re the right tailor for her, then.’

‘Thank you for recommending us to her.’

‘Nothing but the best for Irene, as she frequently lets me know.’

Greg comes out of his studio, carrying two leather samples in each of his hands. In the left, the sample is black and soft; the sample in his right is smokier and stiffer. He kisses Mycroft’s cheek. ‘Hear that, My? You’re the best.’ He flashes his toothy, unaffected grin at John. ‘He used to plan to run the world, you know.’

‘And now I only dress the part, and I’m much happier for it,’ confesses Mycroft. He kisses the end of Greg’s nose, his grey eyes soft with affection.

John thinks the pair of them are adorable.

Greg now holds the leather samples against the cloth, and the two men consult on the match for a moment before Mycroft carefully folds the newly cut pieces and removes them to his studio.

A short while later, Sherlock comes in with his bags, just behind the morning crowd, Crumpler bag bristling with work documents as usual, and his face buried in the phone, also as usual.

But he looks up as he reaches the counter. John has just placed his long black, two sugars on the counter.

‘Thank you for the excellent coffee, John.’

‘You haven’t tasted it yet.’

‘Your coffee is always excellent,’ asserts Sherlock, and then he snatches up the coffee and scurries away – to others it looks like a purposeful stride, but John would know Sherlock’s embarrassed scurry through a rainy window on a dark night - to his usual counter seat overlooking Elizabeth Street.

John deals with the morning rush, and makes a decision. He changes his mind four times, and a fifth, but he figures he can do this. For god’s sake, he used to fight on the front lines in actions in Afghanistan. He used to do field triage and he survived being wounded in action twice. He can bloody do this.

*

Sherlock is startled when the chair beside him scrapes back and John the Perfect Barista sits right down next to him. John puts a cup of coffee – an espresso in a tiny red cup – and a freshly made sandwich on the counter. 

'Friands are still in the oven,' says John apologetically, ‘But I didn’t have time for breakfast before I started. I’ve got a few minutes now. Mind if I sit here?’

‘No. No, no. No. I mean yes. I mean, I don’t mind. Please sit. Down. Yes.’

_Idiot, idiot, idiot._

John makes himself comfortable. Sherlock types a little bit. It’s code for a new algorithm – that bloody hacker, The Professor, is setting challenges for him again. Normally he would quite like that, but right now he is busy. Or might be. Unless he’s not.

John smells good. He’s gone back to his usual moustache wax. And he’s washed his hair using that nice shampoo with the faint smell of almonds. And the aftershave is light, too, so that under the beeswax and the almonds and the faint tang of aftershave, there’s a masculine scent that Sherlock thinks could be pure John Watson, and Sherlock thinks too that he might be a bit drunk on the combination.

‘Sorry about the lack of friand,’ says John.

‘I’ll live.’

_Idiot. IDIOT._

Beside him, John only smiles. He turns the plate containing the sandwich in order to display it to Sherlock. That’s definitely what he’s doing, Sherlock deduces, though he cannot imagine why.

‘This,' says John, 'is chia seed, puréed cashew, rooftop honey from Trunk and organic banana. You should try it. Since I don’t have a friand for you.'

And then John holds the sandwich up for Sherlock. Sherlock’s gaze darts from John to the sandwich, John to the sandwich, in a panic, as though he doesn't know which is going to shoot first.

'You'll like it,' promises John gently, his voice low and soothing and encouraging. 'I really think you will.'

_Will I? I might. I might like the sandwich. God. Idiot. This is not about the sandwich. This is.. this is… this is Greg and that ribbon and Mycroft and I am an idiot a complete idiot a total idiot …_

John only smiles kindly at the panic in Sherlock’s eyes. His blue eyes are warm and gentle and the edges of them crinkle a little, not mocking, not teasing, just hopeful and careful and patient.

Tentatively, Sherlock leans close and takes a bite of the sandwich. Fresh, nutty wholemeal bread; the nut paste given texture by the seeds, both given sweetness by just the right amount of honey, the whole made moist and saved from cloying and stickiness by the fruit. Or more properly, the herb. Bananas are herbs really.

'Are they?'

God. He said that bit out loud. Doesn't seem to matter though, because perfect John is smiling perfectly and he is holding Sherlock’s chin with just a finger under his jaw.

‘You’ve got a crumb,’ says John.

‘Have I?’

“Is it okay if I…?’

Sherlock doesn’t remember if he nods, though he knows that he wanted to and meant to, and then John, finger under Sherlock’s jaw, is using his thumb to wipe a crumb away from Sherlock’s lower lip. 

'I'm terrible at this,' Sherlock blurts. 'I like you but I am terrible at this.'

'Oh, I don't know. You're doing pretty well so far.'

Sherlock stares into blue eyes that are like a sky opening up to him, like an algorithm to the stars, like pi to infinity. 

'I want to kiss you. I mean I...'

'Oh good. That's not just me then. The wanting to kiss. Because I'd really like to kiss you too.'

And then he does. John Watson leans close and presses his lips to Sherlock’s. 

For a second, Sherlock wonders what John has done with the sandwich. And then he does not have a fuck to give about the sandwich as he angles his head so he can get closer, and John does too, and one of John’s hands is on his jaw and another is at his waist and the kissing is utterly perfect.

For a start, it stops him from saying any more stupid things.

Sherlock loves the sensation of Perfect John’s Perfect Moustache against his upper lip. He loves the sensation of John’s suit under his fingers (Sherlock isn’t sure when he grasped John’s lapel, but grasped it he has, and he’s holding on for dear life, and his other hand is flexing over John’s suit-clad thigh, and John seems amenable to that too, so that can just continue, thank you, oh dear god, thank you, because if Sherlock lets go now he’ll fall to bits).

John pulls back from the kiss first, but his hand is still on Sherlock’s face, and his thumb is brushing Sherlock’s cheekbone.

‘Wow,’ says John, breathless. ‘God. That was lovely. I’ve been wanting to kiss you like that for ages.’

‘Do it again,’ gasps Sherlock.

John kisses him again, and he kisses John. They only stop because Mrs Hudson clears her throat in a really pointed fashion from the serving area, and then Molly takes a photo from the door of her barber’s studio.

‘God. We’re going to end up on Instagram,’ Sherlock complains, but he’s still holding onto John.

‘With a sepia tone filter,’ agrees John, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

‘You will look good in it. With your suit. And your… you.’

John’s sunniest sunshine smile breaks through Sherlock’s haze.

‘You’ll look good, too,’ says John. ‘Your you always look good.’

‘Does it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Come out with me tonight,’ blurts Sherlock.

‘I’d love to.’

‘I haven’t said where,’ Sherlock notes, panicking again.

‘Will you be there?’ John asks, blue eyes happy-bright.

‘Well, of course,’ says Sherlock, crisper now, a bit impatient at such a stupid question.

‘Then the where doesn’t matter,’ says John.

John presses another little kiss to Sherlock’s mouth – Sherlock tilts his head to accept it, to better feel the brush of the moustache and the softness of John’s lips – and he rises. ‘See you out the front in Somerset Place at five, then.’

‘Yes,’ breathes Sherlock.

He blinks and turns back to work, forcing himself to concentrate on the algorithm and to not continually look up to watch John Watson the Perfect Human Being make coffee via the window’s reflection.

Inside, though, oh inside, Sherlock Holmes is clapping his hands, keyboard smashing and shouting _squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee_ like there’s no tomorrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Sally's T-shirt is in my Redbubble store.](http://www.redbubble.com/people/narrelleharris/works/14821723-i-am-the-lead-guitarist-2)


	4. Dressed for Success

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock has asked John out for a date. They both spend the afternoon panicking about it.

_The awful part is over!_ thinks Sherlock with giddy relief. _Now for ... the other awful part._  

He considers panicking again, because he has been almost as bad at dates as he has been at flirting. Nobody likes doing the things he likes doing for dates. His dates usually end with shuffling and side-eye and bailing out at a rate that would have saved the fucking _Titanic_. 

But John the Perfect Human Being thinks his deductions are brilliant, and kissed him, and says that he doesn't care where they go tonight as long as Sherlock is there. 

Sherlock left Captains of Industry as the lunchtime rush began, exchanging nods and foolish grins with John. He goes home to his city apartment, a ten minute walk away, and files his client reports, collecting another few thousand dollars he doesn’t need, and then spends three hours deciding what to wear.

He changes four times before he realises that John will meet him straight from work and therefore have no time to change his own clothes. Sherlock doesn't want to make John sartorially uncomfortable - there will already be too much scope for making John uncomfortable with his incapacity to conduct normal conversations and his fascination for the macabre and with saying stupid things because of his acute social anxiety and God he should cancel this while he's on a high and before he messes up everything, he should call and beg off, except, except that John said his deductions were brilliant and fed him a sandwich and kissed him and did it again when he asked and he can do this, he can.

Sherlock changes his shirt and then puts his morning's suit back on and goes out to meet his doom.

*

John stands in front of the mirror in the Captains of Industry bathroom concentrating on his breathing and tugging on his shirt cuffs. He took his coat off after lunch - Mycroft has kindly pressed it for him - and John spent the afternoon in his waistcoat with his shirtsleeves rolled up. Now he can't get the wrinkles out. His shirt is creased and he can't go out with the glory that is Sherlock looking like he's been slept in.

_God, what is he doing?_

The door behind him opens a fraction and a shirt appears. John stares at it. He looks at the hanger to which the shirt is attached, and at the elegant hand attached to the hanger.

‘Give me your trousers,’ says Mycroft Holmes beyond the door.

John wants to point out that Mycroft already has a boyfriend, and that he in no way represents a viable alternative to his delicious younger brother, but he can’t make his tongue work.

Mycroft shakes the shirt impatiently. ‘The customer who ordered this never collected it, so you might as well have it for tonight at least. Put it on. Give me your trousers and waistcoat so that I can press them for you. I won’t have you going out with my brother looking like you’ve been living under a bridge.’

‘Leave the man alone,’ calls out Greg’s voice in the distance, ‘Can’t you see he’s packin’ death over this date already?’

‘I am not “packing death”!’ John protests.

‘I bet you weren’t shitting yourself this hard over the Taliban,’ Greg accuses, and John has to concede that Greg is right. The worst that the Taliban could do was kill him, and they didn’t quite manage that, though they gave it a good solid go. He doesn’t even know why this is making him so nervous.

He closes his eyes and remembers Sherlock’s lips under his, tasting of cashews and honey. He remembers Sherlock’s breathless _do it again_ , and how willing he was to be kissed. Sherlock asked _him_ out.

He exhales, kicks off his shoes, strips off his trousers and waistcoat and exchanges them for the shirt. It’s not the fit he prefers, but it’s better than the wrinkled mess of the shirt he’s been wearing all day already.

‘Shoes!’

John hands his shoes into the more tanned, more callused hands that poke through the door, and as Greg polishes John’s shoes for him, John attends to his hair and moustache.

Shoes, trousers, waistcoat and jacket are returned to him. He dresses and emerges into Captains of Industry.

‘There you are, Cinderfella,’ cries Sally Donovan with her hands clasped girlishly before her, her eyes fluttering coquettishly, ‘You _shall_ go to the ball!’

John grimaces at her. Molly laughs and licks spit between thumb and forefinger and adjusts a tiny bit of his fringe. ‘Perfect,’ she declares.

Mrs Hudson, emerging from the kitchen while wiping her hands on an apron, nods approvingly. ‘Off you go then, John. If anyone can turn that Sherlock Holmes from a frog into a prince, it’ll be you.’

‘Wrong Disney film,’ Greg points out. Mrs Hudson flicks him with a tea towel.

John sees his reflection in the far window and thinks that he’s lucky to have these friends making a group effort on his behalf. And then he realises that this makes Greg, Mycroft and Molly the three fairy godmothers, leaving Sally and Mrs Hudson to potentially be the lizard footmen, and decides it’s time to go.

As he descends the steps, he takes another breath and exhales slowly. Hands steady, eyes bright, he steps out into the alley and looks for Sherlock.

*

Sherlock gets to Somerset place too early, so he loiters in the Crumpler store and considers the new range of messenger bags, with half an eye through the side window which overlooks the doorway that will soon disgorge a short package of blond, mustachioed glory to the street. 

And there he is, looking about hopefully. Even after a day working at an espresso machine, John Watson is immaculate. His leather shoes on those small, neat feet are gleaming. His impeccably tailored suit looks as though it is freshly pressed – perhaps it is, because he’s got a new shirt on under it – dark purple, rather plum, in this light. Those strong legs are wrapped in beautifully tailored cloth, clinging just right to his thighs. The suit jacket falls perfectly over the waistcoat and shirt.  John’s lovely hair is combed perfectly to one side. His moustache is waxed to perfect poise.

Sherlock wants to eat him up with a spoon. 

John stands still, not fidgeting, and Sherlock finds his capacity to be still captivating. John the Perfect Human Being is like an Instagram post, but live - so still and perfectly lit, afternoon sun highlights glowing in his golden blond hair. Hashtag beautiful man. Hashtag John the perfect barista. Hashtag sex on legs. Hashtag I want to kiss him again. Hashtag keyboard smash.

Sherlock checks his reflection in the window. Grey pinstriped trousers, olive green waistcoat, black coat (red buttonhole). Almost everything he was wearing when John kissed him for the first time. Only the shirt is different  – pearl white instead of matt white, the almost-grey sheen of it elegant and subtle against the dark tie. His hair is combed back, those messy curls out of the way. The black leather shoes are lovingly worn in and very comfortable. 

_Right. Right. Right, he can do this._

He smooths the heels of his hands over his hair above his ears and strides out to meet John Watson. 

John beams at Sherlock, appearing out of little Bourke Street like a particularly well groomed and welcome surprise. 

Sherlock bends to kiss a greeting to John's cheek, no mouth, _no too forward, cheek, no..._

They bump noses. 

_Idiot._

John moves swiftly to take and squeeze his hand, to press a quick kiss to Sherlock's cheek, near the corner of his mouth. 

'Your you looks gorgeous,' says John, his crinkling eyes not shy in their appreciation. 

‘And yours,’ replies Sherlock, and he even manages to sound warm instead of like he’s delivering a weather report, so he gives himself a small internal cheer for that feat.

John beams at him. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Follow me,’ says Sherlock with a conspiratorial grin and, delighted, John falls into step beside him.


	5. Flaneurs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and John go on a date. They stroll, they talk, Sherlock deduces things, Sherlock has panic attacks, and John... John Watson finds an opportunity to talk to Sherlock about things that are worth waiting for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> flâneur  
> flaˈnəː,French flanœʀ/  
> noun  
> noun: flâneur; plural noun: flâneurs
> 
> a man who saunters around observing society.

Sherlock forgets to shorten his stride for John, and then realises he doesn’t have to. John walks quickly to keep up but he does it easily and despite a day on his feet, he shows no trace of his periodic limp. That means John is in a good mood.

Sherlock almost abandons his plans, but he decided when he left the flat that he’d go big or go home. Going home will be the most likely outcome. It usually is. But he’s not going to waste John’s time. Either John will be on board for a date Sherlock Style from the start, or he’ll never be. And then Sherlock can go home early and stare at the walls contemplating his lonely, empty life after a shorter fall than usual.

Who is he kidding? Whether John drops him now or in a month, it’ll be a long, long way to fall. But Sherlock believes in ripping the bandaid right off.

‘Hey.’

Sherlock looks at John’s questioning glance and grimaces.

‘Thinky thoughts, huh?’ John prompts, ‘I get those. Though yours look… thinkier.’ He bumps his shoulder companionably against Sherlock’s upper arm.

Sherlock doesn’t think anyone has ever bumped companionably against him before. ‘I promise that my thinkiness is entirely on your account.’ He bumps back, a bit hard, and then thinks, _too much, laying it on too thick, idiot, idiot, id…_

But then he realises that John has… giggled. Warm and bubbling, his shoulders hunched and shaking, the way a little boy might giggle, and he bumps against Sherlock’s arm again, obviously pleased and happy, and Sherlock has to tell his feet to keep walking, when all he wants to do is go to his knees in front of John Watson and grab him by the hands and look up into that wonderful face, at that wonderful smile, into those blue eyes that make Sherlock feel like he’s flying, and say _oh my god, you are perfect, how can you be so perfect, how is it possible I am already so in love with you?_

He is ten steps further on before he reviews the last part of that thought, and realises that indeed when this doesn’t work out and he falls, he’s going to fall hard and smash to bits.

But for right now, there is John the Perfect Human Being walking at his side, grinning, deliberately making sure their arms brush, and not demanding to know where they are going, just happy to be at his side.

_Oh, I do though, I love you, already I do. I hope you stay a little while and don’t let me fall just yet._

They have passed most of the camping gear shops on Little Bourke Street and Sherlock wheels into Niagara Lane. John follows him without question, and now they walk down the cobbled alley with the 19th century warehouse buildings rising on either side of them. Some of the windows have iron bars across them, and above, wide lamps with ornate struts hang over the narrow space. A teeny little café has found a tucked-away home down here.

They emerge on Lonsdale Street and wheel left.

‘How was your day?’ John asks, ‘Did you wow any clients with your genius today?’

‘Probably,’ says Sherlock, ‘They are tediously easy to ‘wow’, given most of them don’t have the brains god gave a fart.’ He grimaces, realising how arrogant that sounds, but John has just laughed again. ‘Hacking computers and finding security defects are simple,’ he says, ‘It is simply a matter of following the logic. Even so-called spontaneity in computers is all dependent on algorithms. Solving computer problems is simple. Solving people, on the other hand, is extremely difficult.’

John is silent at his side.

Sherlock reviews the conversation and winces.

‘So when you’re deducing people…’ begins John.

‘I don’t mean… I… it’s not…’ Sherlock interrupts in a panic, ‘I mean, yes with some people, there is an element of solving the contradictions and seeing what is happening but that’s not you, that is, I mean when I deduce you it’s not.. I don’t want to _solve_ you, John. I want to _know_ you. I want you to know me. Properly _know_ me. No-one has… I mean… nobody wants… I’m sorry…’

John has seized Sherlock’s hand and pulled them to a halt under the tall green trees that line the road. Sherlock has continued to ramble, and he falls silent because John has pressed a finger to Sherlock’s lips.

‘It’s all right,’ says John, ‘And I… I like it when you deduce me. I like it that you speak your mind. You’re straightforward. You just say what you see. There’s no malice in it, I know that. Other people… they think they get it. They talk to me for half an hour and they think they know me, and they really bloody don’t. They find out about me being English, and my time in the army and god, they have _so many opinions_ about that, and that’s before they’ve even seen the scars and…’ He stops. ‘When you read me like that, Sherlock, I don’t feel _judged._ I just feel _seen_. So maybe you’re not always diplomatic about it, but you’re always honest and you always explain how you came to your conclusions, and I know you don’t leap to them. You make me feel… _known_. And I’d like to get to know you, too. If you’ll let me.’

‘Please,’ whispers Sherlock. He doesn’t know how to make that happen yet, but this is the first step. Here comes the first test.

John smiles and holds Sherlock’s hand as they continue up Lonsdale Street, until their stroll takes them to an old building on the corner of Barry Lane. John’s eyes light up and he starts to drag Sherlock towards the windows of the shop on that corner.

‘Fuck, I love Wunderkammer. You knew this was here, right? Please tell me it’s not a coincidence. Here.’ John kneels, because the shop is in the basement of the building at this corner, the window looks into the top of the shop full of curios, as though it’s a 19th century eccentric explorer’s private museum. His palm is splayed on the window and then he points.

‘See? I bought some old medical textbooks here, an early edition of Grey’s Anatomy once, and a little medical kit with syringes and a drill for trepanning and even an old stethoscope. I planned on being a doctor once upon a time, but money was a problem. I was a combat med tech in the army, and I thought maybe I could get into medical school that way, but then I got…’ John falls silent again and he looks wistful as he stares through the glass. ‘So that didn’t happen.’

Sherlock, kneeling beside John, presses his arm close to John’s. ‘I have a set of vintage scientific equipment from here,’ he says, ‘The newer equipment is safer, but I like to use the vintage retorts and Bunsen burners when I can. I like the feel of them in my hands. I have several anatomical models from them, too. I have a bat skeleton under glass.’

‘I’d love one of those. When you see the bones, you realise the wings aren’t arms, in comparative terms, but fingers.’ John draws his elbows in close and spreads his fingers like the tiniest wings in aviation history, and he flaps his fingers like he’s going to fly away with little BatJohn wings.

‘We’ll come back when it’s open,’ says Sherlock, ‘And I’ll get you one.’

John’s grin is impish. ‘Why say it with flowers when you can say it so much better with phalanges?’

‘Dead botany, dead bats, the effort necessary to acquire the latter is so much more meaningful,’ says Sherlock.

‘You old romantic,’ laughs John. They straighten, and John’s hand is in Sherlock’s again, and they continue their amble through the city, cutting down Barry Lane and St John’s to Little Bourke Street again, then across down Little Queen.

‘There was an unsolved murder in this lane in 1924,’ says Sherlock, nodding to a corner piled high with empty milk crates and cardboard boxes. ‘The body of a young man was found, throat cut, face mutilated. I looked through the newspaper cuttings and hacked into the digitised files of the police records from the time, and it’s clear the crime was committed by Norman Alfred List, shortly after shooting five people at Melbourne’s Botanical Gardens in late January of that year. List’s body was found in Pakenham on 2nd February. He suicided, but obviously at this earlier point he still felt he might escape, and killed the man who spotted him here.’

He looks at John expectantly. John is looking at the pile of boxes.

‘What did the police say when you told them?’

‘Nothing. Well, they did want to know where I found the original files. I told them I found a security breach during my standard firewall testing, which I did, and they paid me for the work and then told me they had their eye on me. I haven’t worked IT for the police since.’

‘You solved a 90 year old murder for them and that’s all they had to say?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you solved any more recent murders?’

‘One or two,’ says Sherlock, ‘But the police are suspicious enough about my success in knowing about crimes that are much older than I am and that I could not possibly have committed. They seem rather keen to find a way to make me a suspect in something more contemporary if they can, so I’ve left one or two anonymous tips regarding recent cases, but that’s all.’

John takes firm hold of Sherlock’s hand again. ‘Tell me all about List, anyway.’

As they walk, heading east now, and always taking side streets instead of main streets where they can, Sherlock explains about the timing of the killings, and the evidence that remains on file and in the newspapers, pulling together disparate elements like the weather that day, the purported sighting of a man in woman’s garb at the railway station and the fact that Sherlock believes the killing spree in the gardens was far from motiveless, but rather, was tied in with List’s brother Wilfred’s accidental shooting of their sister’s fiancé in 1915.

When Sherlock has told his tale, John bumps against him again, as though his verbal affirmations – ‘that’s amazing, god you’re brilliant’ are insufficient, so a cat-like nudge of approval must be used as punctuation.

Sherlock is fizzing like he’s made of exclamation marks that are also pogo sticks that are trying to jump out of his skin like a Berocca in a bottle of sparkling water with a too-narrow neck. His skin tingles with it, but all he does is smile and walk tall, head high. He is strutting down the footpath, peacock of the walk, and when he flicks a glance at the incredibly perfect man at his side, he sees that John is strutting too, as though actually proud to be seen with this gangly IT geek with peculiar obsessions for the grotesque.

John starts to talk about some of the strange things he’s seen in his travels too – army buddy shenanigans and strange lights in the sky over Kabul and a house in New Forest that appeared to be haunted. Sherlock offers logical explanations for them all, and he and John have animated discussions about alternative theories – though John, Sherlock is pleased to note, does not subscribe to paranormal explanations.

‘And I know that it wasn’t a gigantic ghost hound cursing the family,’ John finishes a particular tale of a training exercise up in Dartmoor, ‘Because Henry Baskerville and I were the ones who painted up Henry’s brother’s Berkshire pig in reflective body paint and taught it to round up the sheep, like in that kid’s movie, Babe.’

‘You’re lying,’ Sherlock accuses, but they are both laughing.

‘Only a little bit. The lambs were scared to death of Bertie the Pig, poor bastards, so it was just Bertie squealing all over the hills with a dog outline painted on his fat hide, and me and Henry jollying him on with apples and old spuds. The evil stenches from hell we shovelled up behind Stapleton’s tent were all Bertie’s own work, though.’

‘I take it your arch enemy Jack Stapleton was a reformed man thereafter?’

‘Not really, but he stopped hassling Laura and her girlfriend, so that was a win.’

‘Gallantly done, Mr Watson.’

‘Kindly said, Mr Holmes.’

They fetch up at Lily Black’s in Meyer’s Place and Sherlock orders cocktails. He gets the Sinnerman (rum, fig and cinnamon bitters, almond and lemon) for himself, and opts for a Tullamore Dew Irish Whisky Pickleback for John – whisky with a dilled cucumber chaser. It turns out John loves a whisky pickleback, and Sherlock feels like he has already won all of the awards.

While they drink their cocktails, a young woman in a booth seat beside them starts peering around for someone who was there ‘only a second ago’. John is puzzled to see Sherlock waggle his finger at her, garnering her attention.

The woman sees Sherlock watching her intently and leans over to him. ‘I’m flattered, but I’m here with my date,’ she says, nevertheless eying him from patent leather shoes and pinstriped trousers to his pearl grey shirt and slicked back hair as though assessing him for back-up date potential.

‘I’m here with John, who is essentially perfect in every way,’ says Sherlock, indicating the purple-shirted gorgeousness at his side, who is watching them both with keen curiosity, ‘So I’m not interested, thank you.’

She scowls at him. ‘Then what the fuck do you want?’

‘I want to tell you that your date who has gone to order another round isn’t your date. Or rather, he’s someone who knows you well, but is in disguise. An ex-boyfriend, probably. Don’t touch the next drink he brings to you. He’s just put something in it: rohypnol I expect. You should call for a friend to collect you, and then take out a restraining order on him.’

She peers at the date, who is coming towards her with a cocktail in each hand. ‘He does look a bit like Trent, but…’

‘Wig, glasses, theatrical teeth, lifts in his shoes. I will lay you odds that he hasn’t taken you anywhere yet with proper lighting, and I’ll eat my tie if he hasn’t claimed to have a sore throat to explain his odd voice.’

The date shows up just as Sherlock makes this final deduction, and is caught like a rabbit in the headlights of the girl’s glare.

‘Trent?’

‘I just wanted to see you again!’

‘You little fucker!’

The woman drags the wig off Trent’s head and the last Sherlock and John see of him, Trent is running like the clappers down Meyer’s Place, his enraged ex in hot pursuit with a candlestick she's pinched from the bar. A Lily Blacks waiter trails by a length, but is swiftly catching up.

Sherlock stands, brushes himself down and offers a crooked elbow to John. ‘May I take you to dinner, John?’

‘You may, Sherlock.’ John loops a hand through the offered elbow and they saunter down Meyer’s Place and up a rickety staircase to The Waiter’s Club Restaurant.

There, they eat very traditional Italian ravioli (John) and sole (Sherlock), and gaze at each other adoringly over wine and feed each other tartuffo while discussing wigs, crime, cocktail bars, Italian coffee culture versus Melbourne coffee culture and life. John confesses to some of the inbetweenness he feels, and why he likes Melbourne, and then he says, with a rueful smile, how much he loves being a barista.

‘They said I was a crack shot in the army,’ he says, voice low, ‘But this is better. I don’t think a coffee shot ever killed anyone.’ 

Sherlock places his hands over John’s, rubs the backs of his hands with his thumbs, and says, ‘I think you are extraordinary.’

John’s melancholy peels away. He looks up, his moustache curling ahead of the broad smile unfolding underneath. ‘You’re pretty spectacular yourself.’

Next, Sherlock tells John about the time he set fire to a Cluedo board because Mycroft was being an arse about the rules; John tells all about the time he and his sister were caught prancing about the flat when they were ten and twelve respectively – John in his sister’s sundress, Harriet in her brother’s Scout uniform – and Mum went spare while their Dad laughed himself to tears; John also tells about how he and Harriet learned once and for all that they were both gay, when John realised how much he fancied Harriet’s boyfriend, and Harriet, how much she fancied her boyfriend’s sister. Sherlock then admits that he once walked in on Mycroft and Greg defiling the barber’s chair after hours at Captains of Industry, which has scarred him for life, and John laughs so hard he thinks he’s going to have an asthma attack.

They decide to walk dinner off, and John once more trusts entirely to Sherlock and follows him down alleys and shortcuts to the gated Pop-up Patch gardens behind the Ian Potter Gallery at Federation Square.

‘I can probably climb it if you give me a leg up,’ says John gamely, looking at the height of the fence. Sherlock pulls out a key and jingles it.

‘Spoilsport,’ says John, but it’s not really a complaint. He’s feeling great, but he’s limping a little now with all the time he’s spent on his feet.

Sherlock leads him into the former car park that is now covered in two metre square allotments filled with all kinds of plants. The aroma from herbs, flowers, mulch, is warm and exquisite. Sherlock leads John by the hand to three allotments along the river-facing side of the Pop-up Patch.

‘Mrs Hudson has a garden here, to grow herbs for the café,’ says Sherlock, showing John, ‘And Mycroft and Greg grow vegetables – there’s no yard attached to their flat. And this one’s mine.’

Sherlock shows John his own garden, which is definitely not for edible plants. It bears signs warning that many of the plants are toxic.

‘Isn’t that eggplant?’ John points.

‘Don’t let the eggplant fool you,’ says Sherlock, ‘Eggplant and tomato are both from the belladonna family. I’ve been experimenting with those, and with native Australian plants. Of course, everything is a toxin given the right dosage and circumstances…’

‘All cures are poisons and vice versa,’ says John, ‘It’s a basic tenet of pharmaceutical medicines.’

Sherlock beams at John and his immediate understanding. ‘Exactly. I have been experimenting with the berries, leaves, stems, roots and flowers of the lantana plant, brought to this country from the Americas in the mid 19th century. It was once widespread in Australian suburban gardens and I believe it played a significant role in a number of mysterious deaths throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.’

‘That’s a hobby of yours, isn’t it? Investigating unsolved crimes. Have you solved many?’

‘A dozen or so, I believe, though nobody appears to be very interested. The police force, as I explained, consider my interest a harbinger of deadly intent rather than the work of an consulting colleague.’

‘Idiots.’

‘Well, I suppose that solving an 1897 murder isn’t high on their priorities.’

‘I suppose. Still, that’s brilliant.’

Sherlock looks at John like John is made of mystery and fireworks. ‘You’re saying that out loud again.’

‘So I am,’ says John, and grins. He takes Sherlock’s hand and kisses his wrist. ‘Though you’re being amazing again, so it’s only fair.’

Sherlock leads John to a small, carpeted socialising area and dusts some cushions that have been left out. John eases himself down onto the carpet, his back against cushions and a tub of plants and Sherlock folds down beside him.

‘Does massage help?’ asks Sherlock.

John, who has started kneading the muscles around his calf, stops. ‘Sometimes. It’s not so bad. It aches a bit sometimes, that’s all.’

‘It’s not the wound that led you to be invalided out.’

‘No.’

‘You were shot in the shoulder as well – though, again, it isn’t directly responsible for your discharge. You’re perfectly fit and the army would certainly find work to keep you on if it were possible. I heard you tell Molly, once, that you were medically discharged, rather than leaving the army voluntarily, so the cause is doubtless more subtle. I expect a staph infection at the site of the shoulder wound, probably resulting in the spread of infection: an abscess and an epileptic fit of some kind. It only has to happen once, and whether or not you’ve had another since, it will be enough to render you unfit for active service and…’

Sherlock finally notices that John is staring at him. Staring. Wide-eyed. Shocked.

_Idiot, idiot, idiotidiotidiotidiotidiotidiot…_

‘Hey. Hey. Sherlock. It’s okay.’

Sherlock can hear his own mouth saying, ‘Sorrysorrysorrysorry…’ as he scrambles away from John on hands and knees. Everything had been so perfect, so good, so right, but he’s done it again, he cannot get his senses and his brain to Stop Noticing Things, and he can’t get his mouth to stop saying them and it was all right when Sherlock was deducing other people but he’s gone too far, like he always goes too far, and he’s ruined it all, ruined it, ruined it all and for all that they’ve had one kiss and one date, it feels like so far to fall….

‘Hey.’

John’s hands have closed around Sherlock’s face, cupping his cheek and jaw, and Sherlock flinches, waiting for the words to flay him, as they kneel there beside the toxic garden bed.

‘Hey, sorry,’ says John softly, ‘I just wasn’t expecting it. Which is a bit thick of me, because you’re brilliant. The way you see things. You’re brilliant. And it’s okay. You’re right, of course. Abscess in the brain. They saw me right, but brains are tricky. They won’t let me drive any more. There was no way I could make it in medicine, not surgery like I wanted, and Christ knows I’ll never pick up a gun again. So, yeah, that’s what happened.’

‘John, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’

‘About my dodgy brain?’

‘I can’t learn to shut up.’

‘You don’t have to shut up.’

‘You don’t have a dodgy brain. Your brain is lovely.’

John smiles.

John _smiles._

John smiles at _him._

John’s blue eyes are soft and kind and understanding and they crinkle at the corners and they are the window of a brain that went into seizure but also that appreciates the skeletons of bats and the science of plant alkaloids and the burdensome pleasures of having an older sibling and John is the most marvellous, marvellous, marvellous creature, the most perfect human being, to ever walk the earth.

And Sherlock knows this because John is kissing him. So quick, before John stops, he kisses John back, and they cling to each other among the giant wooden planter boxes and kiss and kiss and kiss in the Melbourne summer night.

‘Better now?’ John asks eventually. He is lying flush alongside Sherlock’s body.

Sherlock is lying on the edge of the carpet, wondering at the perfection that is John Watson. On impulse, Sherlock puckers up and kisses John’s upper lip, over the moustache, then his lips.

‘I’m rumpling your suit,’ Sherlock says.

‘Well, I’m rumpling yours. I won’t mind if you won’t.’

‘Rumple me some more.’

John obliges.

After rumpling each other quite a bit, and sitting more comfortably on the carpet, they talk and talk and talk, in between little feasts of kisses, about books and whether or not Trent will spend his life being a vile little creeper, or if the ex caught him and brained him with the candlestick, and how hilarious is Melbourne for building a ferris wheel overlooking the Bolte Bridge and the shipyards in some tragic echo of the London Eye, when the city has plenty of unique beauties of its own without resorting to such facile ploys.

Finally, John notices the time, when his fob watch tumbles from its pocket during a session of cheerful _rumpling_ and he checks that it hasn’t been scratched before putting it away. It’s 2 a.m.

‘Bugger. I have to be at work in five hours. I guess I’ll have to get a taxi home to North Melbourne.’

‘You could sleep at my place,’ says Sherlock, and then he panics. ‘On the sofa I mean. If you want to. Which is… I would like to have sex with you but not tonight. If you want to. Some time. Well, tonight, if you want to, but I’d rather not. Well, I would, but you have to work tomorrow, and I have to work tomorrow, and I’d rather take my time. _Our_ time. I don’t want to hurry. That is. I. I would like… I want to… to… to make love, as it were, not just a fuck, though a fuck is good, I won’t say no to a fuck if that’s all you’re up for, I…’

He is silenced by a kiss that is slow and soft and languid and sweet. John kisses his lips in little sips, until Sherlock is calm again, and slow-kissing with John as though that were the plan all along.

‘You know,’ says John, propping himself up on one elbow and caressing Sherlock’s face with his fingers, ‘When I was in the army, I used to bolt everything down. Food, coffee, almost everything. It hardly mattered what anything tasted like. We were always lurching from one crisis to another, there was never any time to take time. All of my life was being bolted down in a rush like that. Even as a medical tech, it was rush rush rush. You had to move quickly, triage, get people out to help. The only thing I ever took my time over was aiming a kill shot.’ He grimaces, but does not recoil from the honesty of it.

‘Then I moved to Melbourne,’ he continues, ‘And found the city the way it is, with all this great food and the cafés, and I discovered the pleasure of taking the time to be _leisurely_. I learned that there is value in crafting things, _making_ things, that can’t be done in a hurry. That there are things worth taking time over, things worth waiting for. So what I mean is, we can go back to your place and do whatever you want. I can sleep on the couch, and that's all, and that's OK. Because you're worth waiting for.’

Sherlock is pretty sure that if a meteor crashes into the parking lot right now and burns the entire city to a crisp, he at least will die the happiest of men. He reaches for John and kisses him, delighting in the brush of that moustache against his mouth, in the feel of John’s body under the exquisite cut of his suit, in the firmness of John’s hands against his jaw and waist, and thinks _no, this, **this** is the moment I could die the happiest of men._

Eventually, they rise and brush each other down and then, holding hands, walk back to Sherlock’s place in the warren of little streets near Guildford Lane, behind Elizabeth Street.

Sherlock gives John a nightshirt, of all things. Soft cotton, pale blue. ‘It breathes,’ says Sherlock, pulling a soft pair of worn pyjama pants from the drawer for his own use.

John shrugs and turns for the bathroom. His limp is more pronounced now.

‘You don’t have to sleep on the sofa,’ blurts Sherlock. John raises an eyebrow. ‘You could sleep in my bed. With me. Not having sex. I still want to do that properly. I want us to be properly awake and refreshed and have lots of time and for it to be worth waiting for. But a bed is better for your back and your shoulder and your leg than the sofa and…’

John smiles again, and nods. ‘Okay. Yeah. That’d be nice. Ah. Are you a cuddler?’

‘No,’ Sherlock says. He thinks he might be, actually, but the only boyfriend he ever had who stayed nights complained about him being a ‘clingy bloody limpet’ and Sherlock will stay awake for the rest of the night if he has to so that he can listen to John breathe and watch his lovely face and not have to be scraped off like a noxious barnacle by his bed partner during the night. He will behave himself, if only John will say yes and stay in his bed.

‘Oh. Well, I am a bit. Just shove a pillow into my arms if I get to be a bother, and I usually roll over after that.’

‘All right,’ says Sherlock.

John the Perfect Human Being goes to the bathroom and comes back into the bedroom wearing the nightshirt. It’s too long in the arms, and comes down to his knees, and John looks down at his shins and feet poking out underneath.

‘I feel like Wee Willie Winkie,’ he says. He looks at Sherlock, only to find Sherlock with his head on one side, examining John’s feet. John smiles and wriggles his toes for Sherlock’s viewing pleasure. Sherlock blinks, looks up at him, and his eyes widen in alarm until he sees the smile, and then he smiles back.

‘I did say I wanted to know everything about you.’

‘You did. And here you see the common or garden variety infantryman’s feet.’

‘There is nothing common or garden variety about you, John Watson. Though you do look like Wee Willie Winkie, running through the town. The correlation between foot size and penis size is clearly a myth, though, because your feet are quite compact but I can see that you don’t have a wee wi…’ The choked look comes back into his eyes.

(John wonders whether he can get Sherlock to stop being afraid of his own mouth any time soon.)

‘No, I don’t,’ agrees John, wriggling his toes again, ‘But you can get to know about that bit of me later and do all the comparative measurements you like. Tonight you only get your fill of my feet.’

The two of them stop and stare at John’s feet then, because both of them have veered off in very improper directions relating to feet and winkies and getting one’s fill…

John hops into the bed, snuggles down and pulls up the blanket. ‘Night, then.’

‘Goodnight, John.’ Sherlock switches off the bedside light. He snuggles down in the bed beside him and lies on his back. He mustn’t watch John while John is still awake, because he thinks that is probably considered creepy.

He feels John’s pinkie finger overlap his when their hands brush together between them on the cool, soft sheets.

‘Kiss goodnight?’ asks John.

Sherlock nods, but the lights are off and he opens his mouth to reply, but John has propped himself up on his elbow and leaned over and so Sherlock is surprised by the kiss. When John encounters parted lips, he sinks into the kiss, brushing the tip of his tongue against the tip of Sherlock’s, against the inside of Sherlock’s lip. Sherlock relaxes, goes utterly pliant, and their goodnight kiss takes a good minute. A _very_ good minute. An _excellent_ minute.

John ends the kiss by bumping his nose against Sherlock’s. ‘I had a great night. Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome,’ says Sherlock. _Idiot. He’s not thanking you for holding the door open, you unmitigated prat._

But John the Perfect Human Being only bumps their noses together again, kisses the tip of Sherlock’s, and settles back on the bed. He turns and kisses Sherlock’s shoulder.

Sherlock doesn’t mean to sleep, but sleep he does. He wakes up wrapped around John, one arm flung across John’s chest and the other folded up so that his hand is curved around John’s shoulder. His left leg is draped over John’s and his whole body is flush alongside John’s thigh, ribs and chest. His face is pressed into the warmth of John’s throat, which is delicious with all of the scents he associates with John: coffee and faint aftershave and hair wax and the underlying Johnness.

Sherlock blinks and his body tenses, but then he catalogues John’s position. An arm wrapped around Sherlock’s back and bent up so that his fingers are pressed to the skin under Sherlock’s ear. His other arm is bent too, and the fingers of that hand are pressed lightly over the fingers of Sherlock’s hand, which rest against John’s clavicle, holding him in place. Sherlock realises that he is… cradled, in John’s arm, and his heart nearly stops with the utter perfection of it.

Even more perfectly, John’s leg is crooked so that Sherlock’s, pushed over the top of it, is settled, jigsaw-like, comfortably. Sherlock can sense the top part of his thigh against the cotton of John’s nightshirt. Under the nightshirt, the heat of underwearless John creates a warm patch against Sherlock’s skin.

John moves slightly. He kisses Sherlock’s forehead and hugs Sherlock’s body closer and falls back to sleep.

Sherlock kisses John’s throat, which is the skin immediately under his lips. He feels warm and content. He remembers how Victor called him _octo-fucking-pus_ like it was a bad thing. But here he is, Octo-Lock, wrapped up tight with Octo-John, and it is comfortable and _nice_. It’s probably not meant to be romantic that he likes the feel of sleeping John’s junk against his thigh, like that’s a sign of trust, but Sherlock knows perfectly well he’s not like other men – other men have made that perfectly clear over the years – and he thinks, well, my junk is snuggled up against John’s hip in this position, and look at _him_ , smiling in his sleep.

So Sherlock closes his eyes and drifts back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a picture of Wunderkammer:  
> 
> 
> And the [1924 mass killing at Melbourne's Botanical Gardens ](http://www.oddhistory.com.au/pakenham/the-botanic-gardens-murderer/)really happened. The unsolved murder in Little Queen Street is entirely invented for this story, however.
> 
> Trent and his ex are loosely based on the events of the canon story A Case of Identity.


	6. Personal Grooming for the Modern Gentleman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is the morning after that all important First Date, and Sherlock and John navigate morning ablutions that are surprisingly not awkward at all. After all, a gentleman always conducts himself with dignity when he wakes up in bed with a potential life partner with whom he has not yet had sex, even when his manhood does not. He also pays attention to the etiquette of sharing bathroom accessories, and he does not stare at his potential lifemate's war scars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is roughly the area in which Hipster Sherlock has his Melbourne apartment, around Guildford Street.
> 
>  

At 6:30 am, John’s iPhone in its bamboo case, bearing a hand-engraved image of a Bengal tiger, plays the chorus of a Mumford and Sons song – Hopeless Wanderer – and he wakes up confused for all of three seconds by the unfamiliar room and the unexpected but welcome weight of the body plastered along his.

He is lying half on his side, his arms wrapped around Sherlock’s shoulders and waist, their legs entwined. Sherlock's skin is pale and freckled, and for all that he is slender and currently asleep, john can feel the solid strength in him. Sherlock's chest, which he can feel rising and falling beside his, is broad and well-muscled. John fancies he can feel Sherlock's heart beating, though it's probably only his own.

Sherlock's hair is in disarray under John’s cheek and he smiles into the messy curls. Carefully, he moves his arm so he can dabble his fingers in the dark coils that have overnight, after brushing, have reverted to their natural tumble. John wonders how long it takes Sherlock to slick those curls back every morning, and if he might persuade Sherlock to forgo the ritual. John is playing with tendrils of Sherlock’s hair and thinking, _Christ, how glorious are you?_

John can feel his borrowed nightshirt has half rucked up around his hips, and that he has a semi-erection, only partially covered by the cloth, that presses into Sherlock’s stomach. He is more than a little delighted by Sherlock’s own morning chubby, escaped from the fly of his pyjama pants and poking against John’s thigh.

John hears a soft gasp and feels Sherlock wake and instantly try to wriggle away.

‘Where are you going?’ he asks fondly. His arms are loose about Sherlock's body – Sherlock is not trapped, he can leave if he wants to – but John rubs Sherlock's back with the tips of his fingers.

Sherlock pauses, considering. He says, ‘Nowhere,’ and cuddles right back up to John.

John kisses Sherlock’s forehead, and Sherlock tilts his head up so that they can press lips together. Morning breath and all. John finds he doesn’t mind. He’d quite like to wake up like this every day.

What he wants to do is push Sherlock back on the bed and kiss him senseless, and pull down his pyjama pants and whip off this damned nightshirt and rub their bodies together until they have greeted the morning properly with soft exhortations, guttural cries and a sticky mess between their thighs and bellies. But Sherlock wants time to take time, and John wants that too, so damn, he had better get his erection and Sherlock’s out of close proximity.

‘Gotta get to work,’ mutters John, but he hasn’t stopped kissing Sherlock. The plan to not rut against each other for a quickie isn’t going so well, and Sherlock’s hips are thrusting softly against John’s hip so at least he isn’t the only one.

Then Sherlock stills himself and pushes away. ‘Work, now,’ he says, ‘Sex later. If you…’

‘Yes,’ says John emphatically, ‘Later.’

Sherlock grins and disappears, hitching his sagging pyjama pants up over an arse so lush and voluptuous that John wants to cup it and pat it and squeeze it in the curve of his palm for as long as Sherlock will let him. There are other things he wants to do besides, but it is definitely time to get ready for work.

‘You have first shower! There's a spare razor next to your toothbrush,’ Sherlock calls out to him. John pads into the bathroom to find a thick, fluffy towel laid out for him. His suit is hanging up too, so that the steam from the shower will help to… unrumple it.

John grins. He picks up the brand new disposable bamboo toothbrush Sherlock laid out for him last night and brushes his teeth. He rubs his fingers across his moustache, which he’d combed to its natural state last night. A high quality disposable razor is laid neatly next to the toothbrush, and John can see Sherlock’s own shaving kit – oak-handled brush, a matching razor in the stand beside it, and a block of an extremely expensive shaving soap beside them. No wonder Sherlock smells so good.

John turns on the shower tap and starts to lift off the nightshirt. He realises the door is still half open, then shrugs and strips anyway, before stepping into the shower stall and the flow of steaming water. The water pressure is excellent – far superior to most of the places where he grew up in England, and all of the places where he was stationed in the army. He thinks the water pressure is the second thing he fell in love with in this country, when he came on that first visit so many years ago. Right after the coffee.

*

Sherlock, in pyjama pants and a blue robe, notices that John hasn’t closed the bathroom door, and catches a glimpse of John’s thighs and backside as John pulls off the nightshirt. Sherlock’s brain takes a snapshot of those strong legs and firm buttocks surmounted by pale blue cloth, and supplies the descriptors too _. Hashtag luscious. Hashtag stronglegs. Hashtag biteable, hashtag kissable, hashtag rimmingahoy!_

But later, later, later, when there is nowhere else to be, and nothing to do but to kiss and taste and hold and fondle each other, time to lick and suck and ask _is this good?_ and _would you like?_ and _may I?_ and _oh,_ _please, can you?_

And well, damn, now his resurgent erection has banged into the cupboard handle and doesn’t that hurt like a bitch?

While he checks the data from his overnight algorithm runs, Sherlock pushes his cock down with the heel of his hand. _Show some decorum._

To distract himself from thoughts of John arching beneath his hands and mouth, he pulls on running shorts and a sleeveless top and pushes his feet into running shoes. He’ll run off some of this burning desire before getting in to Captains of Industry for early coffee and a few hours work, while he watches John out of the corner of his eye. While he watches John watching him.

Sherlock smiles.

Then he remembers the curve of the scar he saw on John’s right calf, and the smile fades.

The scar sweeps around in a line from the middle of the gastrocnemius muscle, below the back of the knee, to the top of the soleus, around four centimetres long. The wound either did no damage to the tendon or little enough that it healed well. John’s limp is sporadic, coming and going with his levels of tiredness and factors such as his mood and the weather – or so Sherlock has noticed in the last month of observation. The scar is consistent with a shrapnel wound rather than a gunshot. It indicates John’s presence at an explosion of some kind. Car bomb or IED, and a piece of metal slashing the muscle. Perhaps being embedded, though not too deep.

John does not talk about his injuries much. He never says how he received them. Sherlock won’t ask, and he will do his damnedest to keep his mouth shut if he deduces it, for once in his motormouth life. The scars only matter as far as they can give Sherlock clues on knowing John Watson, and the purpose of knowing John Watson is to find ways of making John smile or laugh or do that thing he does, when his eyes crinkle and his mouth purses, like he and Sherlock have a secret joke. He did that a lot last night, and Sherlock loves that look and wants to make that look happen as often as possible. He wants to be the secret source of everything that makes John Watson happy, because John Watson turns out to be the secret source of everything that makes him happy, and so reciprocation is only fair.

For all that, the idea of John hurt like that – of someone, somewhere causing John pain – makes Sherlock swallow hard. John is strong and capable and doesn’t need the slightest amount of pity from anyone, and Sherlock doesn’t feel that anyway. But already John’s hurts are his.

Out of nowhere, he remembers moving away from John on waking, sleep-muzzily worried he was being too clingy, only to find that John wanted him close. He recalls John’s fingers moving in the curls of his untamed hair.

He remembers feeling safe, and how that feeling floats soft about him now, like the lightest of cloaks.

Sherlock stops by the bathroom. ‘I’ve put a fresh shirt on the bed for you, so you don’t have to wear the purple one again. It’s new from Phillips and will be rather long on you, but it will do for the day, I expect.’

‘Rightio.’

John steps out of the shower, and Sherlock hands him a towel. He sees but does not look at the shoulder scar, which is a little pucker. Bullet wound. He was facing the person who shot him. That seems right, for John.

John does not turn around, but Sherlock has moved on anyway. He feels that John, who was so diffident and uncomfortable whenever he talked about his scars last night, has offered him a great gift of trust.

*

‘All right if I use your brush to lather up?’ John calls out.

‘Of course.’

So John uses the oak-handled shaving brush to build up a lather in the Australian-made organic soap, scented with a little ginger and a hint of rosemary. He uses the brush to spread the rich foam around his jaw, cheeks and throat and as he watches himself shave, he thinks about Sherlock handing him the towel and not staring at the scar, only looking into John’s eyes as though the mind behind them, is the only fascinating thing about John. Warmth pools in John’s spine and belly and heart and brain, that Sherlock didn’t turn John’s scars – and therefore John – into a _thing_ , an object of curiosity. Sherlock is curious about John, certainly, but – and John thinks the distinction is important – he is curious about _John_ , the whole man, his whole life, and not just the worst parts of it.

When he has shaved, he uses a little of the matching aftershave oil. He hasn’t any wax for his moustache, but he combs and twists it to temporary satisfaction. He’ll finish the job when he gets to the café, where he keeps the spare tin.

Sherlock uses an Erica Brooke organic crème deodorant rather than a roll-on, so John doesn’t worry about asking, but dips his fingers into the mint-scented concoction of shea butter and essential oils.

He takes his suit back to the bedroom, along with his underwear and socks, which he handwashed last night and left to dry beside the just-open window in the living room. A hand-made shirt from Phillips is laid out on the bed, the deep twilight blue a good match for his suit, and a matching cravat. His own tie is folded and placed beside the items, but it won’t look good with the shirt. John grins and dresses. The shirt is too long, as Sherlock said it would be, but it’s not too bad a fit if he hitches up the sleeves.

He can’t help wishing it wasn’t a brand new shirt; that it was one Sherlock had previously worn. He misses the way they woke up, wrapped around each other, and if he could replicate that feeling now with Sherlock’s shirt he would. He likes that, with Sherlock’s shower gel, shaving cream and deodorant, his already cherished scent is around him still.

_Christ. I want him near me so much, already. I want to wake up with him. To go to sleep with him. One date, and I want him forever. Better keep that to myself. He’s skittish enough as it is._

Once dressed, John checks his reflection in the full length mirror for flaws. He spits on his fingers to fix a stray lock of hair behind his ear and, happy, finally joins Sherlock in the bar kitchen.

*

The kettle boils as John emerges from the bedroom, looking like an ad for Hot Baristas Monthly (pin-up for March through to September). Sherlock pours steaming water into the teapot, into which he has put three scoops of Lupicia’s Sakuranbo tea, the rosemary and Japanese cherries blending with the black tea to create a refreshing aroma. He used to make coffee in the morning, but he won’t drink anyone’s coffee but John’s now.

Leaving the tea to steep, he walks up to John and stoops to kiss him. He can’t keep himself from nuzzling John’s moustache, which is _au naturel_ and soft and wonderful.

John grins. ‘You really like the face fuzz, huh?’ He kisses the corner of Sherlock’s mouth after the softly-said words, though, and Sherlock can hear the affection in them. If there is teasing, it isn’t unkind or disparaging about a weakness. It is the opposite of that.

‘I want to feel it on every part of my body,’ admits Sherlock.

The two of them freeze, both imagining that happy day, and then they kiss, full of promises that they can’t keep yet.

Sitting side by side at Sherlock’s breakfast counter, thighs and shoulders pressed together, they drink their tea. John sees the items on the display shelf in Sherlock’s living room. There’s a violin on a chair beside the shelf, which contains the bat skeleton under glass, an anatomical model of a human skull and one of the brain, and a golden steampunk honeybee, made out of clock parts and amber, mounted in a box frame.

‘I have to go,’ says John, his reluctance clear, ‘Will I see you there later?’

‘After my run,’ Sherlock promises him.

‘I have the day off tomorrow,’ John says, ‘If you’d like to do something’. His voice is thrumming with a hopeful offer.

‘And tonight?’

‘Free as a bird.’ John looks at him. ‘You could come home with me. If you’d like that.’

‘Yes,’ says Sherlock, ‘I’d like that.’

‘And spend tomorrow with me?’

_I’ll spend the rest of my life with you, if you’ll let me._

‘Yes,’ is all Sherlock says, but the syllable is infused with that one wish.

‘Good,’ says John. He cups Sherlock’s cheek and jaw in one hand and ghosts a kiss over his lips, and leaves before he succumbs to the urge to chuck a sickie and spend the rest of the day brushing his moustache over _every single part_ of Sherlock’s body.

Sherlock watches John leave but instead of the expected emptiness, he feels heavy and sweet and mellow, like he is full of honey, although John is the golden one, the amber-buzz perfection of him lingering in Sherlock’s veins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've referred to a lot of products in this story. I haven't used them all myself, but if they are of interest:  
> [The bamboo iPhone case with the Bengal Tiger.](http://ibark.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/tiger_iphone_5_case.jpg)
> 
> [ Sherlock's shaving soap.](http://www.theaustraliannaturalsoapcompany.com.au/soaps/men-s-range.html%20)
> 
> [Sherlock's organic deodorant creme. ](http://www.shopnaturally.com.au/erica-brooke-natural-deodorant-creme-him-her-65g.html)
> 
> [Lupicia teas](http://www.lupicia.com.au/storelocation)
> 
> [Phillips shirts, which make beautiful off-the-rack shirts and also tailor-make them.](http://www.phillipsshirts.com.au/features/)
> 
>  
> 
> [The environmentally friendly bamboo toothbrush. ](http://environmentaltoothbrush.com.au/)


	7. #happyhappyhappy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John goes to work and Sherlock goes for a run. John won't give any juicy gossip to his friends about his date, though Mycroft draws some conclusions. Sherlock spends the day working at Captains of Industry and then goes home with John. It's been 24 hours of foreplay, more or less. Things are about to get #hothothot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an example of some terrace housing in North Melbourne with some simple iron lace decoration on the eaves. John and Irene's place is not painted white and has prettier iron lace, but is a bit like this.
> 
>  

John pauses at the corner of Sutherland Street and Little Lon and glances back towards the corner of Sutherland and Guildford. Three minutes away from Sherlock, and he misses him already. He hopes for a glimpse and… there. There is Sherlock in his running gear that had been so distracting over their breakfast tea.

The navy blue running shorts, with their split up the sides, give the world an extra few centimetres of long, lean leg to view. The loose white nylon tank top ought to be formless, but Sherlock’s strong arms, those broad shoulders and his firmly muscled chest provide form where the cloth does not.

Sherlock jogs to a stop at the corner and uses the bluestone building as a prop to bend, to stretch his leg muscles, to complete his warm-up.

John knows he shouldn’t be perving on Sherlock’s legs and arse right now – they’re not even officially boyfriends yet, though he feels that step can’t be far off – but he is almost sure Sherlock knows that John is watching from the end of the street. Sherlock’s head turns to one side, not looking back at him, but he seems to be listening. John can just make out Sherlock’s smile before Sherlock takes off at a run towards La Trobe Street. His long, lean legs are pieces of art, his straight back and the flow of his still untamed hair a study in grace and beauty. John watches until Sherlock disappears left.

John saunters down Little Lon to Elizabeth Street and joins in the flow of pedestrian traffic. He catches a glimpse of himself in a shop window, at his own giddy grin.

_You look like a man in love._

Oh yes. Oh hell, yes he is.

His walk to work is jaunty as he sings The Real Tuesday Weld to himself.

 _I believe in monogamy, and I believe in lust_  
_I believe in promiscuity and I believe in trust_  
_I believe_  
_I believe that I believe in love…_

*

Sherlock keeps to the outer fringe of the footpath to avoid people where he can, before he can escape the mindless tramp of workers coming into the city and stretch his legs in the gentle rises and falls of Flagstaff Gardens, set on what passes for a hill in this town.

Today he is acutely aware of his body. Most days it's just transport, but his evening and morning with John, and with John’s easy tactile affection, have made him aware of his physical self. Of his muscles and his skin and his penis and his mouth.  He is aware of a yearning to be touched. He wants to use his hands to explore John’s body. He wants John’s hands to explore his. He wants to be so aware of his skin and of John’s. He wants. 

He wants, he wants, he **wants**. 

And so does John – and isn't that a remarkable and wonderful synchronicity?

Sherlock runs past the old Mint and a range of law court offices (he often lightning-deduces people as he passes – _new barrister struggling under the workload and regretting the affair with the intern; hairdresser here to see sentencing on his attacker, too nervous to eat, has been sick once already; ha, that woman needs a new lawyer, she’s is pleading innocent but even her lawyer knows she’s as guilty as **sin**_ ) and jogs on the spot at the lights until he can sprint to the green.

He likes running the circuit of Flagstaff Gardens. Apart from the mental distraction offered by those denizens of the court, he enjoys pushing himself fast up the little hill in this adopted city of his. Melbourne’s first cemetery was here, and the lookout to the bay which gives Flagstaff its name. Locals run their dogs here in the morning (he like dogs) and on market days, it’s a quick run from here to the Victoria Markets for fresh produce early in the morning.

Today he is fond of Flagstaff Gardens because John said he lives in North Melbourne, which is only a few streets away. Sometime in the future, he can run for another fifteen minutes and be at John’s door, if that’s something that John would like.

Sherlock has spent a month deducing John and being fascinated by his quiet, solid way of being so _centred_. He is watchful but warm. Confident without being arrogant and efficient without being cold. He is so quietly self-sufficient that people miss that he is the epicentre of any room. His silence has weight and gravitas. Sherlock was there when the kitchen hand cut open his palm, blood everywhere, and John simply stepped in and provided calm, reassuring triage until the ambulance arrived. When Mrs Hudson’s abusive ex appeared, shouting, at the end of one day, while the others stood around shouting back, John just picked the bastard up by belt and collar and showed him the door. From the top of the stairs.

John is equally unruffled by Mrs Hudson’s no-nonsense straight speaking, Molly’s tough practicality under her sweet exterior, Sally's friendly vulgarity, Mycroft’s prim demeanour or Greg’s larrikin sauciness.

Here is a man who has complex responses – his face is a positive kaleidoscope of emotion, everything is out there for the world to see, only most of the world is stupid and misses it utterly. Sherlock has seen that the customers of Captains of Industry, and even some of the staff, think John is a two dimensional being, as dull and predictable and clear-cut as a fake diamond made of glass.

John is not cut glass. John is in fact a diamond. More. He is an opal, all flashing fiery colour but you need to be looking properly to see it best. He’s flawed, of course he is, all humans are, but even his flaws are integral to the whole. John is a perfect human being. John is a _treasure_.

Last night’s date has only cemented the feelings that have grown in Sherlock’s mind and heart over the last weeks, and really, how long does he need to understand the nature of those feelings?

Sherlock runs and thinks of John, and so is oblivious to the people who watch his long legs flashing by, revealed almost to the hip by the navy blue running shorts. The snug sports jocks he wears -   basically a waistband with a micro-fibre sock attached to stop his dick falling out – don’t leave much to the imagination. Or perhaps they leave quite a lot to certain kinds of imaginations.

He does wonder, though, at the two people who take pictures (and upload them to Twitter and Instagram with #sportingMelbourne, #legalicious, #bootylicious, #omnomnomnomnom and #runbabyrun).

*

John Watson grins and refuses to say a word about his date, which Greg declares unsporting.

‘After we gussied you up, we deserve a bit of goss. Come on, Watson, give up the juicy details.’

‘We went for a walk,’ says John, ‘We had dinner. We talked till the wee hours. It was nice.’

‘Your smug expressions says “nice” is a pitiful description,’ says Greg.

Mycroft, who is sipping coffee and flipping through a copy of Paper Magazine, doesn’t look up as he says, ‘John is still wearing yesterday’s suit, although the shirt is new, as in brand new, he’s left a pin in the collar. Further, he had to wax his moustache when he arrived, and the clincher you’ll find is that he smells of Sherlock’s shaving cream and deodorant. Our good barista didn’t go home last night. So if it’s all right with you, I would prefer to skip the juicy details. I have no desire to hear about my brother being…’ he crinkles his nose.

‘Juicy?’ offers Greg innocently.

‘You are incorrigible.’ But Mycroft smiles as he says it. Greg waggles his eyebrows at Mycroft as the latter looks up, and then swoops in to kiss Mycroft’s forehead. Then he turns to John.

‘Okay, so we’re sparing Mycroft’s delicate sensibilities for now, but you’d better come out with me for smoko and give me a blow by blow – if you will pardon the pun – account.’

John shakes his head. ‘A gentleman doesn’t snog and tell. We had a great night. Thank you for getting me out the door, though.’

‘You’re no fun,’ pouts Greg.

‘I bet that’s not what Sherlock thinks,’ says Molly as she comes in the door. The sweetness of her smile is an odd contrast to the potential sauciness of the comment. But maybe she just means it like it sounds.

‘I am surprised,’ says Mycroft, rising and taking his used cup to the servery hatch, ‘That my brother didn’t manage to make a complete hash of it. He has an excellent mind but inclined to oblivious, discourteous and unsolicited observations when attempting to engage in conversation.’

‘You have some other brother I don’t know about?’ asks John, when he’s made up a batch of orders, ‘Because the one I dated last night was brilliant, charming, adorable, funny, clever and gorgeous.’

Mycroft and Greg look at each other and mouth the words _Got It Bad_ at each other.

‘I heard that,’ says John. But he grins because it’s true.

Just then, the door opens and Sherlock walks in, his habitual Crumpler bag on one shoulder, a small leather overnight bag in the other. John beams on seeing him, and the bag, and if his grin gets any sunnier he may set Captains of Industry on fire.

Sherlock takes his seat by the window and a moment later, John puts the long black, two sugars down for him.

‘Thank you for the excellent coffee, John.’

‘You haven’t tasted it yet.’

‘Your coffee is always excellent,’ asserts Sherlock.

Neither of them is actually talking about coffee at this point. Anticipation is a palpable thing in the air between them.

‘You look great in that shirt,’ says John.

Sherlock’s eyes flicker down and he seems almost surprised. He put the plum-coloured shirt on after his shower while he got his work prepared for the day, wanting to be enfolded in its John-scent. When he finished dressing, somehow he hadn’t taken it off.

‘I…’ he starts.

‘Really good,’ John continues, voice thrumming with approval, ‘Much better colour for you than for me. It’s a little tight across your chest…’ he leans closer. ‘I like it.’

So does Sherlock. He smiles, his grey-blue-green eyes flashing into the green spectrum now.

‘Need anything else?’ John asks.

_Oh, so much. Everything. Whatever you want to give me._

‘Breakfast,’ says Sherlock, ‘That sandwich.’

‘One Watson special, coming up,’ says John. His hand lingers on Sherlock’s wrist for a moment, then he’s off.

Sherlock sips his coffee – it is excellent, of course – and flips up the lid of his computer to get on with his work. The Professor is at it again, leaving him cryptic messages embedded in files that are tucked inside servers he’s hacked. How odd that two months ago, those stupid, juvenile messages were the very shallow highlight of his week. He disliked The Professor even then, but the messages gave him something to do. A distraction from loneliness. Then he met John at the café where his brother works, and he didn’t feel lonely any more. At least, not hopelessly lonely.

Sherlock shuts the Professor’s shenanigans down without answering a single one. He hasn’t answered any of the hacker’s crude messages in over a month. He doesn't need to engage with that arse any more, just to feel like someone is paying attention. John pays attention and John is _perfect_. 

Sherlock shuts all the doors on that game, throws several more metaphorical steel doors shut on those doors, and boots the whole thing into a kind of techno-oubliette. He sends an invoice, sets another algorithm running and watches the cafe in the reflection. 

John places the cashew, chia, honey and banana sandwich on multigrain at his elbow, and ghosts a kiss over Sherlock’s temple. Sherlock wishes John had time to stay and feed the sandwich to him, and kiss him in between, but besotted as they are, they still have work that must be done.

Then Sherlock notices that John has drawn a bee in honey that is soaking into the top of the bread, and he smiles as he eats. The taste of the honey on the roof of his palate is like those morning kisses before they got out of bed. The flavour makes him mellow. It also makes him hard.

It’s going to be a long day. Happy, maybe. But looooooooong.

*

John likes making coffee. He likes making excellent coffee. He loves the fact that there’s an art to it, as well as a science. There’s craft in judging the grind, the pour, the heating of the milk so that it results in silky layers rather than a jug full of froth. After years in warzones, and long months in hospitals (including some weeks when he thought he would die in one) he likes this focus. It soothes his nerves, which were scattered all to buggery when he was first discharge.

These days his hand is steady, and he feels strong in his body again. He feels strong in his mind, too. He feels tempered, like all the extraneous things were burned away during those years of guns and bombs and blood and fever. Here he is on the other side, distilled to The Essential John Watson, who isn’t perfect, but on the whole he knows who he is and what he wants.

And for a month, what he has wanted is the who of that fascinating man, Mycroft’s odd brother. He knew almost from the start that Sherlock was interested in him too, but they’ve been wary. Careful. Circling each other, fascinated and awkward. John was puzzled until Greg mentioned Mycroft’s hilarious thickness in reading the ‘god I think you’re sexy’ signals.

John doesn’t think Sherlock is hilarious or thick about being slow on that uptake. John could see how anxious Sherlock was in company, and how he blurted out those amazing deductions which made people mean instead of amazed. When Sherlock did it about John, John thought it was marvellous. He knows himself well enough that none of it was a surprise to him. He was only surprised that someone else could… well, _see_ him. Most people don’t. They see the short, unassuming bloke in the old fashioned suit and the moustache and make up a story about him in their heads which has nothing to do with the truth. And John isn’t hiding any of who he was or is. He nearly died. Twice. Well, three times if you count the car bomb. He knows life’s too short and often too painful to fuck around with it. You have to work out who you are and then be that as hard as you can, because too soon your number’s up.

So for a month, John Watson was captivated by and fell for that sharp, unusual mind and those strange and beautiful eyes, and he knows that here is a man who knows who he is. That he is anxious about other people not liking who he is doesn’t tempt him to pretend to be something else.

Sherlock Holmes is often awkward, but he is honest. And extraordinary. And when he looks at John Watson, he _sees_ John Watson, and not some edited version of that man made more palatable for a civilised world.

John, for his part, wants to see Sherlock Holmes too, in all his awkward, abrupt, brilliant, honest glory.

Also, he can’t wait to see Sherlock naked.

*

Sally arrives at lunchtime, but Sherlock doesn’t leave. He works from the window all day, though he spends half the time watching John in the reflection. Periodically, John joins him at the window for his breaks, or to drop off coffee, or just to stand at his shoulder and look out the window at the buildings opposite. They don’t say anything, but they do lean against each other a little. Sometime, John rests his hand on Sherlock’s opposite shoulder and strokes Sherlock’s jaw and throat with his thumb, while Sherlock closes his eyes and leans his head back on John’s thigh.

Even Greg resists the impulse to tease them about it. Next week the two of them will be fair game, but right now everyone is just gobsmacked by how relaxed they look together.

Mycroft mutters to Greg that he thinks Sherlock has had an Arrogance Bypass. Greg gives Mycroft a sappy look and tells him, ‘Remember us, back then? I remember my friends all thinking you had a telephone pole up your arse, you were so uptight. You just needed someone who’d let you unbend.’

‘Yes,’ murmurs Mycroft, and leans towards Greg, swaying like a sapling for a kiss. He remembers that once he was a stiff, unbending, friendless and dour manipulator, afraid of a world that didn’t understand or want him. But Gregory Lestrade had done that ridiculous dance at the back of the university library, dropping his jeans to reveal and ribbon-wrapped cock and revealed more than a superb body. He had revealed within Mycroft a capacity for love, and a desire for it, too. He had cut the straitjacket of fear and isolation from him, and taught him to enjoy his own body, as well as Greg’s. Gregory Lestrade had taught Mycroft Holmes how to live.

Mycroft can only feel happy and grateful that it seems John Watson is now performing that same office for Sherlock.

Molly sneaks to the iPod attached to the speakers during the afternoon lull and The Civil Wars is soon playing to all and sundry.

 _She’s the sea I’m sinking in_  
_He’s the ink under my skin_  
_Sometimes I can’t tell where I end_  
_Where I leave off and he begins_  
_But who could do without you?_  
_And who could do without you?_

John and Sherlock keep catching each other’s eye and grinning.

*

At the end of the day, Greg takes control of the iPod and the whole Captains of Industry crew tidy up to the energetic beat of Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation. As soon as their respective studio doors are shut, Greg grabs Mycroft and they proceed to jive in the space beside the door. Mycroft cuts a dash in his suit, as does Greg in his jeans and T and leather jacket.

Sally grabs Molly and they join in, less polished but just as enthusiastic.

John drapes the cloth over the espresso machine and walks out to Sherlock. Sherlock fetches John’s coat from the rack, where he hung it early in the afternoon. He helps John into the coat and then does up the buttons for him. He smooths his hands down John’s lapels and fixes John’s collar.

Getting dressed has never felt so much like sex. 

*

The tram ride to North Melbourne is excruciating. Packed with people, the aircon is struggling to cope. Sherlock normally enjoys this tramline and catches it just to watch people, to deduce them (to sometimes just avoid a punch in the eye for saying what he sees out loud). Even now it has its compensations – the tram only starts at the end of Elizabeth Street, and they get on at the second stop, so have a seat together. Thighs and knees and calves pressed close. Their hands are pinkie-linked in the space between John’s left knee and Sherlock’s right.

They alight at the corner of Queensbury and walk down Errol towards the row of terrace houses where John lives. It is a small building, and low. The front window is narrow. The iron lace decorating eaves and struts of the veranda depicts gumnuts and gum leaves and little rosettes at the joins. It’s an old house, maybe early Federation.

‘Irene’s out tonight,’ says John, ‘I thought I’d make dinner.’

He leads the way down the entry hall. To the left is a front bedroom, then a living room. The room after that is another bedroom with a London Underground roundel screwed into the wood, and then the house opens onto a kitchen and bathroom at the rear.

‘We have a courtyard out the back,’ says John, and the tone of his voice is oddly gruff with arousal. Sherlock’s mind immediately flashes through several options and concludes that John has fantasised about the two of them in the courtyard. _Oh good._

‘You can drop your gear in my room, if you like.’

Sherlock opens the door with the roundel on it. The distinctive symbol bears the name Baker Street in the blue rectangle surmounting the red circle.

John’s room is small and cosy and efficiently furnished but full of personal touches. A shelf of books on the history of coffee, but also of medicine. Some biographies – everything from Australia’s General Monash to a battered paperback copy of Henri Murger’s 1851 La Vie de Boheme. On the wall is a framed photograph of several men in uniform, John among them, and next to that a striking photograph of a mountainous landscape in winter. On the bed is an embroidered rug of Afghani design.

John comes in behind him, jacket off.

‘I should hang this,’ he says softly.

‘Yes.’ Sherlock moves aside, but John presses close to him as he passes to reach the wardrobe anyway.

‘John,’ says Sherlock, voice taut.

‘Yes?’ John turns to him, his own expression suddenly wary and tense and the tension in Sherlock’s tone.

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Oh.’

‘I don’t…’

‘No. I mean. I guess… if you’ve changed your…’

‘I don’t want to wait. Not a minute longer.’

The wariness clears from John’s expression. ‘Oh,’ he said again, more breathily, and his eyes are avid.

‘Shower first? We can do… we don’t need to… I brought condoms. Lube.’

‘Sherlock…’ John’s voice cracks.

‘But I want… I want to lick… all over… tongue you…’

The choking awkwardness of everything Sherlock wants is soothed and swept away by John’s arms around him, John’s mouth on his, Johns body pressing close to him, John’s voice saying, ‘Please, god, yes, no more waiting…’

They kick off their shoes, and kiss each other. They tear off socks, kissing between each one shed. John fumbles his waistcoat buttons and Sherlock helps with them, and they both get tangled, so they kiss and pull John’s waistcoat right over his head and throw it in a corner. John pushes Sherlock’s coat back from his shoulders, and ends up trapping Sherlock’s arms next to his body, so they kiss and kiss and giggle and kiss until John inches his body back enough to slip his fingers in between their chests to unfasten the buttons.

Kiss. Lick. Suck. John’s moustache brushing Sherlock’s skin with an intimate tickle that Sherlock adores, as he knew he would.

Sherlock’s waistcoat joins his coat on the floor.

The plum coloured shirt is tugged out of Sherlock’s trousers and John presses his fingertips to the base of that long, lovely spine. He mouths Sherlock’s throat and suckles on the skin. When Sherlock reacts to the tickle of hair, he carefully nuzzles in a way that sweeps the moustache softly over Sherlock’s sensitive skin. Sherlock can’t help it when he pushes his cock and his balls against John, rutting against him, helplessly wanton. Instead of making a disparaging comment about how much Sherlock is gagging for it, John ruts back and holds Sherlock close while he kisses and nuzzles the taut lines of Sherlock’s tendons in his neck, and the soft delectation of his earlobes.

Sherlock makes a low sound that turns into a helpless kind of squeak and he shoves John’s braces off his shoulders and pulls at the navy blue shirt until a button pops. John only laughs and stretches his neck for Sherlock to kiss, and bite and lick. His steady hands press to Sherlock’s skin over his ribs and stroke firmly upwards, under the tight purple shirt, and he moves his hands to cup Sherlock’s pecs and rubs his thumbs over Sherlock’s nipples.

Sherlock arches, sighs, whimpers, his hips jerking forward again. The pressure of his erection on John’s makes John moan, a deep, guttural sound of satisfaction, and he winds his hand around Sherlock’s neck and pulls him down to kiss again.

Finally they are standing shirtless, trouser buttons and flies undone, barefoot, hair mussed, bodies already flushed with desire and marked with passion.

‘Fuck. Bathroom. Now,’ says John, seizing Sherlock by the hand. They stride – almost run, but not quite – to the bathroom and while John turns on the hot water, Sherlock strips out of his trousers and pants, and tugs impatiently on John’s trousers. John, his laugh a giggling delight, holds his hands up and lets Sherlock strip him naked. While Sherlock is down there, he nuzzles against John’s thigh, and his pubic thatch, and his heavy, full cock.

_Hashtag gorgeous, hashtag hung, hashtag holyfuck, hashtag yesyesyes._

Sherlock opens his mouth and swallows the crown, then he kisses the wet slit, then he makes himself stand up. John is looking both mesmerised and concerned.

‘You shouldn’t…’

‘I’m clean,’ says Sherlock, ‘I…’

‘Well, me too, but it’s only lower risk, not _no_ risk, you can’t…’

‘I can. I do. We’re both all right, yes?’

‘Yes,’ John acquiesces at last, and he fondles Sherlock’s cock before bringing sticky fingers up to lick.

Sherlock thinks he is so full of love that he might begin leaking it all over the place, great pulses of pearlescent rainbow light of how much he loves John Watson so soon, so soon and so much.

‘Let me wash you, John.’

John brings Sherlock down for another passionate kiss, and they are kiss-lick-sucking each other until Sherlock chivvies John into the shower.

Sherlock has no idea what soap products are in here – he has absolutely no patience to find out right now, except to grab the ones that smell like John – an earthily scented body wash, much lighter than sandalwood, a little spicy, and a shampoo that might be heather. He washes the product out of his slick-backed hair ( _John likes his curls!_ ) while John washes his chest.

Nobody’s chest could be as dirty as his seems to be, with the attention John is lavishing on his pecs, his nipples, his ribs, his throat. Oh god. John’s hands are firm and wonderful and Sherlock is very surprised that steam isn’t actually curling off his body at every place John’s hands touch him.

Sherlock knows that many men and women have thought him beautiful. Usually he is not terribly impressed with his few lovers worshipping his body like this, but John… John is running his hands all over Sherlock’s body, but his voice is saying, ‘You are amazing, god. Sherlock. That incredible mind, so sharp, so wonderful, and look at you. What a package. Gorgeous. Tell me. Tell me what you like.’

‘I like _you_ ,’ says Sherlock, arching under John’s touch, wanting to say the other thing, and then he grabs John by his bare bum and pulls him close so that their groins press hard together.

The kissing starts again, meltingly hot, and Sherlock reaches to rub soap between the cheeks of John’s delectable arse. John takes this as an excellent sign, grabs the shower gel and does the same for Sherlock. They both laughing and kissing and rubbing and teasing until Sherlock nearly slips on the ceramic, and John nearly slips catching him.

Out of the shower then, and they start to dry each other and then can’t wait, _can’t wait,_ not another second, not another moment and John grabs Sherlock’s hand and they run naked to the bedroom. Sherlock shoves the Afghan throw rug aside, and the blankets, and they half throw each other, slippery-wet, onto the bed.

Sherlock kisses John’s chest and belly, licks his nipples and his clavicle and sucks on his throat. He kisses John’s scarred shoulder, and his unblemished one with equal fervour, and he feels something uncoil in John’s body, so that when he runs his large, strong hands over John’s hips, over his waist and ribs, then down and around to the curve of his bum, John’s moan hiccups slightly and then he spreads his legs, vulnerable and offering and pliant in a way that Sherlock has never had a lover. They all wanted him to be the pliant one, opening wide to them, submitting to them.

Sherlock rubs his hands all over John’s chest and belly and legs (he feels the scar but caresses both calves with equal tenderness, equal yearning, equal desire) and he cups and fondles John’s arse, slow and sensuous, and he kisses the places where his hands have been. Over his inner thighs and his cock and the plump of his backside that shows between his legs.

‘Turn,’ he says, and John rolls over on the bed, brings his knees up and offers his naked, vulnerable, shower-fresh self to Sherlock without a moment’s hesitation.

Sherlock sees the scar of the exit wound on John’s back, which he only felt under his fingers in the shower – a messy sprawl of scar tissue.

He kisses the small of John’s back, and holds his hip, and trails the fingers of his other hand over John’s sac and up between the cheeks of his arse. John moans and wriggles.

Sherlock uses both hands to spread John and nuzzles at the clean, dusky skin. He pulls back to look, because every part of John is beautiful.

 _Hashtag ohgodohgodohgod, hashtag rimmingahoy_!

Sherlock bends and dips his tongue into the crinkled skin. He licks and John moans and wriggles and then holds still. Sherlock kisses one side of the exposed skin, then the other, and then kisses the pucker like he would kiss John’s mouth – a soft press of lips followed by open mouth followed by exploring tongue.

John, face pressed to the pillow, gabbles. Sherlock hears his own name, and god’s, and otherwise just breathless moans and panting and he feels particularly clever, because John is always the epitome of control and centredness, and now he’s a squirming, writhing, panting, thrusting mass of want, and Sherlock is doing that with nothing but his hands on John’s hips and his tongue thrusting into his lovely arse.

When Sherlock urges John onto his back again, and John’s expression is half bliss, half lust, Sherlock grabs the lube and John’s hand and shows John that he wants to be prepped. John, a bit addled but completely on board with this plan, lets Sherlock cover his fingers with lube, and then he slips his fingers between Sherlock’s legs and fondles and plays with his hole in turn.

‘Gissa kiss,’ he says, reaching for Sherlock.

‘But…’

‘If I’m clean enough for you to tongue me, I’m all good for kissing you. Come here.’

So they kiss while John rocks his fingers into Sherlock, and then they giggle and laugh for no reason except that it feels good, and they feel good, and everything is amazing… and then Sherlock rolls a condom onto John’s wonderfully enormous cock (John pushed the condom into his hands, said breathlessly, ‘tidier’ and then sucked on Sherlock’s nipple while fingering him until Sherlock thought he’d come from that alone) and then he eases himself down and they rock together until Sherlock is seated fully.

Then, moaning, laughing, thrusting, sighing, thrusting, kissing, crying out each other’s name and thrusting and thrusting (and John’s hand around Sherlock’s cock is sliding and pulling and he’s saying, ‘oh baby, yes, please, come on you gorgeous thing, you amazing thing, oh god, yeah, that’s it’)…

And Sherlock comes, his head thrown back as he cries out, and stripes of come spurt over John’s chest and throat and chin before Sherlock wriggles down on John’s still stiff cock, circling his hips then rising and falling, up and down, hard fast, clenching his gluteus muscles, watching John’s face as John, eyes open wide, those blue blue eyes into which Sherlock has fallen and is falling and will fall again, those wide-as-the-sky eyes squeeze shut and open again like John’s mouth is open and panting and his hips are jerking up and he is coming coming coming hard.

Sherlock keeps moving through the aftershocks of John’s orgasm, making little gasps himself at how sensitive he is, then he flops down onto the bed. John peels off the condom, ties it off and drops it over the side of the bed into his bedside bin. Sherlock immediately burrows into John’s side. John winds his arms around Sherlock and holds him close, and he presses his nose into Sherlock’ damp curls.

A splatter of come on John’s throat smears against Sherlock’s nose.

 _Not exactly tidier_ , thinks Sherlock. He gropes around for the wet wipes he saw on the side table, and wipes down John’s body. John hums and giggles and holds Sherlock closer until Sherlock finishes, and then John kisses Sherlock.

‘Didn’t mean for that to be so quick,’ he says, though he sounds pretty smug anyway, ‘Slower next time, hmm?’

‘We’ve had 24 hours of foreplay,’ says Sherlock, ‘I wouldn’t call that quick.’

‘Month of foreplay, really,’ corrects John sleepily. He sighs. ‘God, you’re lovely.’

People don’t usually say that either. But John isn’t people. He is singular. He is John the Perfect Barista, John the Perfect Human Being. John Watson. The only one of his kind.

John cuddles Sherlock close to his body. Sherlock’s cheek is on his shoulder and he can see the little dent of the bullet wound in the opposite one. He holds tight to John’s waist, as though the past might alter and snatch John away from him after all.

John snuffles at Sherlock’s curls.

‘I’m here, Sherlock. Not going anywhere. Not ever.’

Sherlock’s heart lurches in wonder and hope, but John has drifted into a doze and doesn’t seem to have noticed what he’s said.

Sherlock’s heavy lidded eyes take in the rise of John’s chest, the curve of his jaw, and above it the golden tuft of his moustache; he sees the wrinkle of the scar and the line of John’s arm. He stares, taking a mental photograph of this truncated world view from within the circle of John’s strong arms. In the mental Instagram he keeps of beautiful and perfect things, he stores the image, along with the scent of their bodies after sex, and the sound of John’s breathing, and it’s all marked, _hashtag happyhappyhappy._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The songs referenced here are I Believe, by The Real Tuesday Weld, and Birds of a Feather, by The Civil Wars.


	8. Let's Have Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock deduces things. John makes dinner. They heckle the TV together. It's a perfect date, with lots of sex. Lots and lots and lots of sex. And then Sherlock tells John something true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a visual aid for people who don't know what I mean by 'footy shorts' (and please DO ask me to explain any and all Australianisms you find), I give you these fine images of Australian Rules footballers in their kit.
> 
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> 
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Sherlock isn't actually sleeping, but he's not really awake, so it's a few minutes before he realises the thing he thinks is an oddly tactile dream is in fact John the Perfect Barista patting his bottom. 

Sherlock is snuggled up against John’s body, head nestled against John’s shoulder. John is mostly on his side, one arm comfortably trapped beneath Sherlock’s waist, hand pressed to the small of Sherlock’s back. John’s other arm reaches across them both, encircling Sherlock, so that his wrist is draped over Sherlock’s hip and his cupped hand rests against the curve of that plush bum.

Rests and then moves. Patting and stroking and gently fondling a small and luscious patch of pale, plump skin.

Sherlock finds John’s hand on his arse _mesmerising_. Pat, pat, pat. A soft circular stroke with his fingertips. A tender squeeze. Sherlock is as mesmerised by the soft petting as John seems to be by his arse. 

Sherlock doesn’t want John to stop, so he doesn’t move. If he opens his eyes a little, he can see John’s moustache, level with his gaze. Relaxed, almost in a bottom-patting-induced trance, he notes each blond hair on John’s lip, the scent of the wax, even though the follicles are all unruly now. Looking at the moustache with a languid version of his usual perceptive, deconstructing scrutiny, he sees something he hasn’t noticed before.

Johns hand finally ceases its caresses and he looks at Sherlock, who drags his eyes away from John’s moustache to meet his gaze. 

‘What is it?’ John asks. 

‘Nothing,’ says Sherlock, pretty convincingly he thinks. 

‘No. No, you've noticed something. You've got your noticing face on.’ 

Sherlock purses his lips and ponders the _noticing face_ he didn't know he had. 

‘It's okay,’ says John with an affectionate smile, ‘I like the way you notice things, remember?’ His arms are still around Sherlock, even though the lovely patting has stopped.

 _Hashtag bumpatsFTFW_ , thinks Sherlock absently, _hashtag arseheaven, hashtag hishandshishandshishands_

He wriggles a little bit, pushing his backside against John’s hand, and John cleverly obliges him by resuming the FTFW bumpats.

Sherlock  says, ‘You grew the moustache in part to hide the scar.’

John’s hand doesn’t even falter, just pats and then runs his fingertips in little circles over Sherlock’s skin. It's reassuring.

‘How do you know?’ John asks, genuinely curious.

Sherlock reaches up to brush his fingertips over John’s upper lip, smoothing the hairs into place. He doesn't linger over the scar that runs horizontally from the centre of the philtrum to curve slightly across and up to a few millimetres below John’s left nostril. It's about a centimetre long and has healed well. The skin doesn’t pull at all. Without the moustache the scar would be noticeable, but not ugly.

‘I haven’t seen your moustache this closely before,’ says Sherlock, repeating the soft grooming gesture again – John softly squeezes his bum again, which he likes and he pushes against John’s palm – ‘But from here it's easy to see it, and to see that you usually brush your moustache carefully to conceal the line. But although you don't like people to make a fuss about your scars, when you're relaxed you are not especially self-conscious about them. But you’ve told me before that you dislike how idiots react sometimes. You grew it at least in part to avoid idiot commentary.’ 

‘Yeah,’ agrees John, nuzzling at Sherlock’s forehead with the moustache in question. ‘It's shitty to be gearing up for the kiss and all you get is an epic tragedy face and some stupid attempt to kiss it better.’

Sherlock can’t imagine trying to kiss John better. John doesn’t need to be better. John is already perfect. But thinking about kissing John better makes him simply want to kiss John, but John is busy blessing Sherlock’s forehead with the Moustache of Perfection, so Sherlock presses close to John and kisses his chest instead. John has a slightly hairy chest. Just a perfect amount of hairiness, in fact, and without thinking, Sherlock indulges himself by nudging nose and mouth against John’s sternum and left pec.

John glances down at the man nuzzling his chest, and grins.

‘I got it the same time as the leg,’ John tells Sherlock, ‘The car bomb. I was right in among it, doing triage on my mates and the civilians. Took a while to realise I had a bit of motorbike in my calf, and it was only when they made me sit down to treat my leg that they we realised my mouth was sliced open too.’

Sherlock stops nuzzling and looks up. He brushes his fingers over the moustache again, smoothing it back into shape after it has become kiss-messed. He looks not at the scar, or at the moustache, but at John’s lips. John blinks, but submits to that measured look.

‘You have a beautiful mouth,’ says Sherlock, ‘When you smile, but the rest of the time too. It’s very expressive. _You're_ very expressive.’ 

John kisses Sherlock’s fingertips, then his lips. 

‘I still want to feel your moustache on every part of my body,’ Sherlock says earnestly.

‘I think I know where I’d like to put it next,’ says John, grinning eyes sparkling wickedly.

Sherlock’s eyes crinkle up in anticipatory delight. 

‘I should get a sharpie so I can mark where we’re up to,’ giggles John. He darts down to kiss ticklish lines over Sherlock’s sternum, down his belly. He stops to tongue Sherlock’s navel and Sherlock wriggles up against John’s mouth. Then he stretches out to grab his phone from the little bedside table and takes a sudden photograph. John shifts to brush mouth and lips and tongue and moustache over Sherlock’s ribs, and Sherlock takes another slightly blurry close-up.

Between moans and giggles, they document the progress of John’s moustache on Sherlock’s body from clavicle to groin, until they are so keyed up the only thing to do is for John to kiss and suck and nuzzle Sherlock’s achingly hard cock. Every brush of his moustache against the hot skin makes Sherlock moan and shiver and wriggle and thrust and reverently curse – he really, really, really fucking loves the feel of it all over his body – until John sucks him down and keeps on sucking, licking (and fingering and squeezing that gorgeous arse) until Sherlock, hips jerking uncontrollably, comes with a series of loud cries.

After that, Sherlock just about manages to pull John down on top of him and mumble, ‘Frot me.’

It’s not a request (or is it ‘command’?) John’s heard before, but he’s lying on top of Sherlock, his own hard cock snugged against Sherlock’s gorgeous derriere, so it doesn’t take much analysis. John shifts so that he can frot into the crease of Sherlock’s arse cheeks, and Sherlock – despite being apparently boneless and breathless – brings his legs up, rests his feet on John’s hips, and chants _yesyesyesyesfuckJohnyesyesyesyesyesyes_ with such animated bliss that John is not too long in making a new sticky mess all over the two of them, much to their mutual and immense satisfaction.

John folds half onto Sherlock, half onto the mattress, and finds his face close to Sherlock’s armpit, so he cheerfully continues the ‘all over my body’ motif and burrows his moustache into the hollow. Sherlock twitches as though startled, and then raises his arm and giggles while John discovers that he kind of likes the scent of Sherlock’s post-shower, post-orgasm axilla. All those delicious pheromones.

Then someone’s stomach rumbles, and the other’s too, a very literal like calling to like.

‘Let’s have dinner,’ John says and rolls out of bed, tugging Sherlock up after him. ‘Shower first though,’ he says, grinning at the state of them.

Sherlock stands tall, looking smug and confident and glowing like a fucking angel, despite the sticky sheen of perspiration and come all over his pubes and thighs and stomach and backside. ‘Race you,’ he says, and, naked, he sprints to the bathroom, John in pursuit.

John has no intention of overtaking Sherlock. He kind of likes the view of that arse from back here. Frankly, he’s formulating plans to have Sherlock streaking all over the house as often as possible.

*

It is a myth that showering together saves water. Well, certainly if John and Sherlock are going to be involved. Still, they manage to help wash each other down with a certain thoroughness, and John gets out first so that he can start dinner.

Sherlock strides magnificently past him in the kitchen, buck-naked, and pauses to admire John in a very short pair of footy shorts and nothing else. John in a three-piece suit is perfect. John in footy shorts is perfect. John utterly naked is perfect.

_Hashtag sexytrifecta_

John is serving up lightly stir-fried bok choy with soy, garlic and almonds with the pan-seared dukkha-encrusted salmon fillets on a little bed of organic soba noodles when Sherlock comes out in blue silk boxers and John’s dressing gown.

‘Is this all right?’ he asks, ‘I forgot to bring mine.’

‘No worries,’ says John, because he has picked up a fair bit of Australian vernacular, and also because the idea that Sherlock is already borrowing his clothes makes him a bit dizzily gleeful.

They sit on the sofa to eat salmon with large glasses of De Bortoli La Boheme Act Two Rosé and they talk. They talk about Australian wine versus Spanish and Italian and French wine. They talk about the dukkha spices, and how John makes his own from a recipe he found in Afghanistan that favours pistachios over almonds, but he uses lemon myrtle when he can get it, though in a pinch the Gewurzhaus spice shop’s dukkha will do.

He asks Sherlock when he first started to deduce things about people, and for the first time in his life, Sherlock tells the whole story to someone: about how the noticing came first, and understanding how he did the noticing came later. About how he cultivated the skills he needed to do it, partly as a way to try to make friends, and when that never worked, to at least have a way to get those shits at school to leave him alone.

John tells Sherlock about joining the army to help with money worries at home, to maybe get a foot in the door for medicine, to maybe have something worthwhile to do with his life. He says he’s not sure he got anything out of the experience but a limp, the occasional nightmare and a couple of ribbons and tin, though he’s glad at least that they represent some lives he saved. He tells Sherlock about finding Sydney too big, and how Melbourne hit the Goldilocks Zone of Just Right.

Sherlock confesses he has five Bachelor’s degrees – law and chemistry from the UK, and then, when he got to Australia ostensibly to deliver a ‘come home or else’ ultimatum to his older brother six years ago, another three. IT and Maths from the University of Sydney. Psych Science at La Trobe. He was accepted into NIDA but decided acting for a living was inane. Being an IT Security Consultant is only slightly less inane, but it pays better. He has started Masters degrees three times and got bored out of his skull before the end of the first semester. He’s always way ahead of the course material.

‘But three Bachelor’s degrees in six years? How the hell did you manage that?’

Sherlock shrugs modestly. ‘I am by way of being a genius.’

‘Of course you are,’ says John genially, taking on all the smug pride that is missing from Sherlock’s tone.

When they’re onto their second bottle of wine – a Madfish shiraz this time – John confesses that he sometimes watches action and war films just so he can yell at the TV about the appalling inaccuracies with guns, ammo and army procedure in general.

‘I tried that with crime shows,’ says Sherlock, ‘But they’re so bad I just about had an aneurism. I…ah…’

‘Go on. Spill!’ urges John, seeing the embarrassed hesitation.

‘I watch reality television to unwind,’ says Sherlock sheepishly, ‘I deduce what’s really going on behind the scenes. It can be a challenge – the footage we do see is highly edited. But there are always tells.’

John is so thrilled by this idea that they end up pouring over the TV guide together until they find something suitably hideous. Then they spend an hour watching – or more accurately, heckling –The Real Housewives of Melbourne. This involves Sherlock making sudden, startling pronouncements, then explaining how he reached his conclusions, which are logical and brilliant, while John cackles gleefully and pours more wine. Neither of them has ever had so much fun hurling abuse at a television.

By the time the credits are rolling, Sherlock is sprawled over John on the sofa, kissing him, being kissed, drunk more on each other than on the wine.

John holds Sherlock’s face in his hands and kisses his cheeks and his brow. ‘God,’ he murmurs, ‘You’re amazing. Extraordinary. My bloke’s a certified fucking genius.’

He doesn’t seem to have noticed his use of the possessive, there. Sherlock has. You bet he has.

_I’m his bloke. He said so._

‘And yet you also have the most gorgeous tush I've ever seen,’ John continues, reaching down to pat-squeeze the praiseworthy tush. Sherlock wriggles and raises his arse to press into John’s hands. John grins and squeezes it, jiggles it, then pats and fondles it again. They are both really quite captivated by that whole exercise.

‘Brain, arse, and god, your legs. I also like your cock.’

‘I like your cock too,’ says Sherlock, wriggling even more provocatively, ‘And your arse. And your moustache. And your mind. You have a wonderful mind.’

‘I have a dodgy brain.’

‘No, no, no,’ protests Sherlock, ‘Your mind is very much out of the common. It was the first thing I noticed. After the moustache and your arse. And your hands. You have wonderful hands.’

John squeezes Sherlock’s arse again, then begins to rub it in sensual circles.

‘Did you… uh… in the shower… did you…?’

Sherlock grins wickedly up at John. ‘Yes, John. I did.’

‘Then let’s get back to bed. I promised Irene there’d be no sex in the shared areas.’

‘Boring,’ says Sherlock, and he squirms down between John’s legs to mouth at his erection through the footy shorts. John’s cock is pressed down and to one side, and the head of it peeps out from under the left leg of the short shorts. Sherlock kisses the little bit of crown that’s visible. Suckles at it. John moans and spreads his legs and combs his fingers through Sherlock’s hair – now a mass of curls, and John could not be more delighted.

Sherlock brings John to the edge, then grins wickedly and declares, ‘No orgasms in the shared areas, John!’

John slaps Sherlock’s arse, drags him to the bedroom and urges him onto the bed. Sherlock hugs a pillow to his chest as he sticks his bum up in the air, and quivers as John’s wonderful hands spread him. He quakes as John licks into the clean, pink hollow. He keens and whimpers at the sensation of mouth and lips and tongue on (and in) his arse, and even moreso at the sensation of John’s moustache brushing against the inside of his arsecheeks, and all around – sometimes against his balls, sometimes against his lower back, sometimes against the skin of his bum as John kisses him while he kneads the muscles of his backside and keeps him spread wide and licks and nuzzles and tongue-fucks and kisses and then starts to tug rhythmically on Sherlock’s straining shaft as he pushes his mouth-and-moustache right in there. In moments, Sherlock is coming and just about passes out from the moustache joy.

He opens his bleary eyes to see John rubbing the back of his hand across his moustache, settling it back into place. John is grinning at him.

‘You don’t mind I said you were my bloke before, did you? I know it’s a bit early…’

‘I don’t mind,’ pants Sherlock. Then, after a moment he adds, ‘Are you mine, too?’

‘Yeah, of course,’ says John, and as simply as that, they are now a couple.

Sherlock crawls over the sticky bedding so that he can insinuate a hand into John’s shorts. He’s not very co-ordinated about it. John puts his hand over Sherlock’s and closes them both over the bulge in his shorts.

‘Tell me something true,’ John breathes, kneading both their hands over his cock, pushing himself up into the pressure.

‘You’re a war hero, but you don’t feel like one,’ Sherlock breathes back at him, enveloping John’s covered erection and stroking it, with John’s hand over his, ‘You’re magnificent and extraordinary, but not for the reasons that people usually think. They think it’s because of guns and war, and it’s not. You have the courage to be wholly yourself in a world where people almost never do. You’re the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met. The most beautiful and extraordinary man I know…’

John watches Sherlock as he says these things, and his expression is dazed and almost shocked, but not in a bad way. He feels exposed but also safe. He feels understood. He feels… extraordinary. Because Sherlock, who is brilliant, thinks he is.

John comes, shuddering, in his shorts, and he would consider being embarrassed about that, except that his boyfriend is kissing his chest in a dozen places.

Then his boyfriend is reaching for his phone and twists around to take a photo of his own gorgeous backside, still rosy pink from their previous exertions.

‘Keeping track,’ says Sherlock with a lazy, happy smirk.

Ten minutes later, after the judicious use of wet wipes and the throwing of the come-smeared bedspread to the floor, and a few moments working out who gets which side of the bed, they are under the sheets, an arm span of space between them.

‘There’s no use denying it, you know,’ says John, giving Sherlock a stern look, ‘You’re a cuddler.’

‘I… might be,’ Sherlock says.

John opens his arms and beckons with his fingertips. ‘Well, feel free to glom on from the start. I like it.’

Sherlock shimmies across the bed and gloms, as instructed, on.

 _#mybloke_ he thinks, and _#hisbloketoo._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dukkah is a middle eastern spice mix. And this is [Gewurzhaus](http://www.gewurzhaus.com.au/).The wines here are both Australian wines.
> 
> Bonus footy pics - Adam Goodes being awesome.
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	9. Embiggen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after contains these things: breakfast in bed, an alarming mystery, their first fight, an eccentric tram ride, bee books, and a gift.

Morning in John’s bedroom is just like a four-seasons-in-a-day blast of Melbourne weather in microcosm. First, John’s all warm and languid like a balmy summer day, and then there’s the sudden winter chill of a southerly right off the Antarctic when he realises he’s alone in his bed. Then before the squall sets in, a springtime sun burns off the cold when he hears Sherlock’s deep voice singing down the hall, and finally there’s the just-rightness of the crisp promise and the latent energy of Melbourne in the best of her days of autumn.

John is out of bed and bending over to fetch his shorts that have somehow ended up under the bed when Sherlock bumps the bedroom door open with his hip and comes in carrying a heavily laden tray. John straightens up and turns. Sherlock has frozen to the spot, staring. Apparently he was quite enjoying the view of John’s rear when he entered the room.

Well, now he has John’s lovely front to look at instead, and he does, and then he snaps out of it and waggles the tray slightly.

‘Breakfast in bed,’ he says, ‘For which, traditionally, you need to be in bed.’

John obligingly leaps back into bed and pulls the sheet up over his distracting front, as far as his hips, at least. His pecs remain a bit distracting, as do his hands, his smile, his moustache and his beguiling bed-hair. Sherlock can master himself, however, and does so. He’s busy being distracting himself, dressed as he is in John’s robe and nothing else. The nothing else is becoming nothing elser by the moment, as the robe pulls apart while Sherlock manoeuvres himself and the tray into bed. The tray contains two cups of tea and a single, generous plate of scrambled eggs, with toast on the side.

John enjoys the spectacle of those long, pale limbs, bare to the thigh, angling to prop up the tray. He also enjoys looking at the broad stripe of Sherlock’s bare chest – with its constellations of freckles and moles – and the tumble of dark curls over Sherlock’s forehead, and Sherlock’s face generally. There is a smear of paprika across one cheek that looks like smeared himself with ochre in preparation for battle. John wants to lick it off.

Actually, John wants to take the plate of perfectly scrambled eggs and creamy-tart goat’s cheese and a dusting of paprika, served with multigrain toast, and smear it artistically all over Sherlock’s chest and belly and lick it all off, very, very slowly.

It’s while he’s gazing at Sherlock, considering this alternative to the tediousness of crockery, that Sherlock scoops scrambled eggs onto a corner of some buttered toast and offers it to John. John takes the bite, and Sherlock kisses him before piling egg onto the remaining toast and eating the next bite himself.

John asks about the melody he heard Sherlock singing ( _Take Me to Church_ , says Sherlock) and while Sherlock feeds them both, they wander into the merits of Hozier versus Mumford and Sons. They both liked Cat Empire’s first album but found the following ones too much like that first, and neither can understand the Australian obsession with Jimmy Barnes. Then John mentions Skipping Girl Vinegar, a Melbourne band new to Sherlock, and Sherlock mentions Sydney-siders Boy and Bear, who are new to John. They each reach for their phones – flashing thigh and arse and belly as they stretch towards bedside tables – and admire each other while they do – and then they’re playing snatches of songs to each other.

Breakfast continues around the expanding music education. Sherlock feeds John and then himself from the plate, and when he drops a blob of russet-dusted egg on John’s chest, he leans over to lick it up before resuming a distracted commentary on harmonies in The Postal Service’s last album. He almost acts like he doesn’t know what he’s done. (And what he’s done is to make John’s nipples pebble and his cock to stir again.)

Then it happens again.

In truth, the first two spills are probably accidents, but the third one is definitely deliberate.

John rescues the fifth spill with a forefinger, smears it on Sherlock’s paprikaed cheek and then does the honours. Slowly.

The rest of breakfast is a sort of eroticised friendly food fight, even though no sex is had. Their spirits are definitely willing, but their bodies are sated and pleasantly sore from the night before and do nothing more to signal interest than reach half mast. Neither minds the lack. It doesn’t feel like one. It just feels fun and warm and intimate and relaxed. They laugh a lot, even while their anatomies register a raincheck.

When Sherlock takes a photo of an artistically arrange pile of egg on John’s diaphragm and posts it to @wewantplates on Twitter, they both start to giggle madly.

‘Where was I up to with the moustache again?’ asks John. Sherlock points randomly to a part of his body that is in want of moustache-tickling (inside elbow) and John kisses him on the sensitive skin there. Sherlock takes a photo, ‘for reference’.

The tray with the detritus of breakfast gets shoved aside and John, with the sheet tangled around his hips and thighs, straddles Sherlock in order to kiss him more effectively.

And yet it’s not about sex. Later, maybe. Right now it’s about feeling close.

‘Anything special you want to do today?’ John asks.

‘Surprise me.’

*

Sherlock is dressed in dark skinny jeans and navy blue button-up, and in the midst of combing his hair back into its sleek, straight lines – with the aid of industrial-strength boutique product – when the front door opens and a beautiful woman walks into the flat.

The woman is pristinely made up and elegantly coifed and precisely dressed, as though the skirt and blouse were tailored directly onto her body where she stood. She looks like painted porcelain. She looks like a statue made flesh, like Galatea.

Instead of greeting her, Sherlock stares, trying to find something to fix on. Usually, he can tell half a dozen things about a person at a glance, but this woman – his gaze slides right off her. Some people, he knows, surround themselves with a kind of armour, but even the armour can be revealing. This is all shield. Perhaps that’s something, but it’s not much.

All he knows is that this beautiful woman of marble shows nothing but artifice to the world, and he has no way of knowing what lies beneath it. Is she clever? Vain? Clever _and_ vain? Spiteful? Dangerous? Superficial? He doesn’t know if she will say anything useful or interesting or even true when she speaks. It’s fascinating, not knowing, but also faintly alarming.

Sherlock examines that idea. _Alarming_.

The thing is, Sherlock knows what he is. Abrupt and awkward, a genius when it comes to numbers and systems and seeing things that people want kept hidden, and a person too rawly honest for his own good. He blurts things out because he’s always forgetting that other people aren’t as excited by true things as he is, at least until they are throwing beverages, curses and sometimes punches at him.

Sherlock sees stuff, he says what he sees, done deal. He pulls apart puzzles to find the truth under them, trying, always trying, to see how things work. In another life he might have learned to use the building blocks of telling truth from lies to become an accomplished, gold star, blue ribbon fibber – but that’s not _this_ life.

Instead, he is completely and frequently deeply inappropriately _honest_. He extracts technical truths for three thousand dollars or more a day. He blurts out truths that cause nearly everyone but John the Perfect Human Being to recoil from him. At best, he can keep his teeth clamped on truths he knows and is trying not to say. ( _I love you. Already I love you. It’s too fast, I know, I know, don’t run away. I’ll keep my mouth shut, see?_ )

He shocks other people with the truths he tells, whether or not he means to. He tells people too much about themselves, but he tells them too much about himself, too. It leaves him vulnerable. Exposed. It’s why the IT field suits him, even though it often bores him rigid. He can shield himself behind numbers and codes. It feels safe back there. Security breaches and viral programs don’t spit him in the face and call him creeper.

But this woman alarms him. She’s a cipher that can’t be broken. Any truths she may contain are not merely opaque but utter darkness to him. This woman is encased in artifice, is full of secrets, probably, and they may be perfectly innocent secrets (she is secretly vapid and only wants to seem more interesting) or perfectly sinister ones, but he can’t find a thread to pull on that will unravel the mystery.

She is smiling at him right now, like a porcelain doll, like an empty house. Like she can see right through him.

‘You must be a friend of John’s,’ she’s saying.

‘His boyfriend,’ Sherlock blurts.

‘Boyfriend? Really?’ She is cool, a little amused. Sherlock doesn’t know what that means.

‘Yes. My name is Sherlock Holmes.’ His lifts his chin, meeting her cynical coolness with an arrogant hauteur of his own, saying his name as though she should know it, and know of his importance in his field.

‘Ah,’ she says, ‘My tailor’s little brother. I’m sure I heard someone at the café saying you two had just gone on your first date.’

Sherlock has no idea how to take any of that. ‘Yes.’

‘And here you are, boyfriends. That’s a very swift courtship, isn’t it?’

Sherlock can’t tell if she’s mocking him or not. Maybe it’s an honest observation. It does seem quite fast, compared to how other people do these things, but other people are idiots.

But then, in personal matters, he’s been told he’s the idiot often enough.

Right then, after the easy companionship of last night and this morning, Sherlock starts to second guess himself, again. Maths he can do. Computers are a doddle. Reading the signs of people’s lives, he does almost without thinking. But his own interactions with people cause him trouble. The minute he becomes _part_ of the patterns he discerns, the patterns fall apart. He misinterprets and misunderstands, because other people don’t see as clearly as he does, and they are frequently dishonest about their feelings and intentions, and he’s left all at sea.

So Sherlock reviews the events of the last thirty six hours, their perfect date and their chaste night together, then last night’s glorious wantonness. John called him ‘my bloke’ and said he was Sherlock’s too. That seems fairly straightforward. It _should_ be all right. He’s understood this, he _has_ , and it’s not too fast. It’s just true and right, even if it’s faster than other people would do it, but other people, as he rightly says, are idiots, and John’s not an idiot, and…

And John emerges from the bathroom where he’s been brushing his teeth and combing his hair and waxing his moustache. He’s gone for a lumbersexual look today: weathered dark green canvas hiker’s trousers, plaid blue flannel shirt over a white T, and a pair of brown boots hand-crafted by Greg Lestrade.

‘Hey, Irene. You’re back early.’ John’s tone is friendly, but not warm. Sherlock can hear the difference.

‘Not really. I’ve just met your boyfriend.’

Sherlock doesn’t think he imagines the slight emphasis on that last word.

John’s arms slide around Sherlock’s waist and he kisses Sherlock’s shoulder. ‘I heard.’

‘Quite the whirlwind romance,’ Irene says as though she thinks it’s romantic, but there’s definitely something under that tone which is laughing at them, and is a bit mean. ‘Nice to see you haven’t lost any time in becoming _steadies_.’

‘I didn’t know there was meant to be a trial period,’ John says drily to Irene, ‘I think you’re getting us mixed up with some kind of try-before-you-buy home appliance. Or Foxtel.’

John’s fingers flex against Sherlock’s waist, even while something bladed glitters sharply under the friendly tone that he directs towards Irene.

Sherlock relaxes immediately. He glares at Irene, more than a bit smugly. ‘We’re _dating_ , not shacking up.’

Though he would do that, if John asked. His own place, definitely. More room. Less Irene. Sherlock in an instant already knows where most of John’s things could go. The second spare room, full of boxes he’s never unpacked, would make a nice office for John. Maybe they would put his Baker Street Underground sign on the front door. Establish from the start that it’s John’s space too. No hurry, though.

Irene looks at them appraisingly, then uncurls a slow smile that is one part sly to two parts satisfaction.’

‘You’re a cute couple.’

‘Yes, we are,’ declares Sherlock, at the same time John says, ‘I think so.’ Then they grin at each other.

‘We’re off,’ says John, taking Sherlock’s hand and heading for the door, collecting a satchel, his wallet and his keys from a bowl on a bookshelf on the way.

‘We didn’t have sex on the sofa,’ says Sherlock pointedly as he slings his Crumpler bag over his shoulder. She casts a sharp, suspicious glance towards the item in question, which pleases him. He’s finally thrown her off guard.

He wonders briefly if John will be cross about what he said, but John’s laughing as they walk past the Mork Chocolate Brew House, the Auction Rooms café on the opposite side of the street, and towards the Arts Centre in the old North Melbourne Town Hall.

‘She’s all right, you know,’ John says, ‘Just don’t take anything she says personally. As long as she pays her rent and doesn’t nick my stuff, she can be as Kardashian as she likes. Anyway, she’s all glitter, no pony.’

Sherlock suspects Irene Adler has a metaphorical pony, whatever that might mean in this situation, but if John is unfazed by her, he chooses to dismiss her too, for now at least.

While they’re waiting on the corner near the arts centre for the tram, John becomes suddenly serious.

‘I… uh… if this really is… going a bit quick for you,’ he says, ‘We can pull back. It’s okay. I mean…’

Sherlock gives him a sharp-edged look. Annoyed. Why on earth would John think he didn’t like how well things were going? He thought this whole uncertainty thing was _sorted_ , and is aggravated to find it _isn’t_.

‘I know I can be a bit… intense,’ John is saying, ‘I get very single-minded, I’ve been told.’

‘I’m perfectly capable of speaking my mind,’ Sherlock says, waspish, ‘I’m not being rushed into anything. I’m not some wilting lily waiting for a big strong man to carefully nurture my bashful, fragile heart until I’m ready to surrender my virginity.’ Why do some people think his social awkwardness means he is a moron who doesn’t know his own mind? As though inarticulateness is the same as innocence. They are two entirely separate things.

John gives him an odd look. ‘I didn’t say you were, I just mean, if you want to take things more slowly…’

‘In what way, “slowly”? Do you want us to see other people as well? Or do you think I should go home now and _you’ll call_.’

Sherlock is unspeakably disappointed. He’s been accused of moving too fast himself, wanting too much too soon, and of course, it’s turned out the party of the second part wasn’t on the same page. They were in fact backing off the page in question almost as soon as it appeared. But he thought John was different. He thought John was right up here with him, hurtling gloriously towards being together without all that faffing about, pretending they’re not already invested. If anything, they’re not moving fast enough. Why is John acting like Sherlock’s the one who wants to slow down? The obvious conclusion is that it’s John who’s backing away but he’s trying to make that Sherlock’s decision.

‘God no, that’s not what I mean…’

‘Good. Neither do I. You like me, I like you, we want to see each other and no-one else for at least the immediate future. I believe that’s technically where being ‘boyfriends’ comes in. What’s the point in diddling about with terminology?’ Sherlock is angry now – anger is always better than pain – and of course it’s all there in his voice.

John stares at him, and Sherlock holds his breath. Well, that’s fucked it. But really, what’s the point if they’re going to be half-hearted? If John isn’t prepared to jump into this with both feet, that means he’s already pulling both feet out and preparing to sidle off instead. It’s a fairly typical pattern.

Sherlock braces for the fall.

‘No point at all,’ says John suddenly. The speculative look in his eyes has resolved into a kind of satisfaction. ‘You like me, I like you, as you say, and I don’t have the slightest interest in dating other people. Frankly, nobody else comes close to being as interesting as you are.’ He grins. ‘Or as sexy. Or as smart, come to that. So we’re dating. Exclusive. Yeah?’

Sherlock is disconcerted by the ground under his feet solidifying once more, but nods decisively. ‘Yes.’

‘Good. Because, you know, I hate… diddlng about with terminology. I wasn’t kidding, though, about people finding me too intense.’ John makes a rueful moue. ‘I didn’t mean to imply I wanted to cool off with you. It’s just that Irene reminded me that I can be a bit… hell-for-leather. Too direct. It puts people off.’

 _Oh_ , Sherlock realises. _John has his own social anxieties._ And somehow that only makes John the Perfect Human Being more perfect.

‘You nearly died, more than once,’ Sherlock points out, ‘I rather suspect it makes you less inclined to waste time, when you know what you want.’

‘Pretty much.’ John is grinning at him again, like he knows exactly what he wants, and it’s standing right next to him. Sherlock is pleased to see that grin, because he knows what he wants too, and it’s good that they’re more or less on the same page after all.

‘Is this our first fight as a couple?’ Sherlock asks.

‘I think so.’

‘We really are moving fast.’

‘Yep. If Irene wasn’t home, we could go back for our first make-up sex.’

Sherlock glances over his shoulder, considering the possibilities, but the tram trundles towards them up the street.

‘Later, I promise,’ says John. His fingers trail over the back of Sherlock’s wrist, and they board the tram 57 towards the city.

*

If the 57 tram route was a person, its friends would call it “eccentric”. Its enemies would be less kind. The route traverses neighbourhoods that include chic urban enclave, bogan suburbia, high rise student accommodation, vibrant African migrant area, and hipster-gentrified housing before it rumbles to rest in the city at the grand Victorian-era Flinders Street Station. John likes the route and his fellow commuters, even the flakier ones. They’re all so very _human_ – part of the great tapestry of life, as his mate Bill Murray used to say.

He thinks about Bill for a second, and then feels Sherlock’s hand pressed over his and leaves those sudden memories of blood and bone behind to smile at his boyfriend.

His boyfriend.

 _My bloke_ , he’d said, arrowing straight for the heart of the matter before thinking about it, and for a second he thought he’d blown it. Too much, too soon and then this extraordinary man would find him, as less extraordinary people had done, _too intense_ … but Sherlock’s pretty intense himself, as the recent conversation confirms. He should have trusted to Sherlock’s reply – “does that mean I’m yours too?” instead of letting Irene get to him.

Irene Adler, John decides, is all well and good as a flatmate – unlike the last one, she pays the bills, doesn’t steal from him and understands basic hygiene – but she’s also something of a booby trap. He’ll have to remember that in future.

They alight at the Victoria Markets, which are already bustling with people going to the meat and produce market stalls. John leads Sherlock around the corner of the markets proper to a row of shops, and a little café doing a roaring trade. The interior of Market Lane Coffee is whitewashed and decidedly unfancy, with few places to sit. Minimal cakes are on display – a rhubarb and white chocolate doughnut and one which claims to be a sticky toffee and chai – but otherwise it’s all Coffee, with a Capital C.

Sherlock is dubious, but John orders takeaway and the beverage delivered into his hands is almost as good as the coffee John makes. They find a bench to sit on out in the sun and peel the lids off the cups. Side by side, they savour the aroma and then the taste. The board claimed today’s Ethiopian blend had hints of caramel and blackcurrent, and the board did not lie. There’s a subtle sweet smoothness as the coffee meets his tongue, which deepens and then transforms to a sharper berry-like tang as he swallows. Flavour lingers on his tongue and palate after the sip, which is the mark of good coffee. The cheap stuff is all tongue-taste and acid (or bitter if the roast has been burnt) and has none of the full, lingering presence.

For a little while, they say nothing. They just sit and sip and soak up the morning sun, both of them perfectly content.

Then someone walks past with two King Charles Spaniels on a leash and Sherlock says, ‘Those aren’t his dogs. He’s trying to start a dog walking business, despite the fact he doesn’t like dogs. He’s allergic to them. No doubt someone told him it would be an easy way to make money in the city while he tries to establish his writing career.’

John raises an expectant eyebrow at him, so Sherlock points out the way the man keeps forgetting the dogs names, how they refuse to obey him in any case, how the man has dog hairs only around the hems of his trousers and nowhere else – he clearly doesn’t pat the animals – and how he irregularly stops to scratch the inflamed skin of his shins. The man carries a backpack which he hasn’t closed properly. Within there is a laptop and a notebook.

‘Writing career?’ asks John.

‘Nobody wears a shirt like that who doesn’t fancy themselves a writer. I doubt he’s any good, jumping on the bandwagon of that overused, overblown phrase.’

The man’s shirt is one of the ubiquitous ‘Keep Calm’ series, white on red. “Keep Calm and Write Bestsellers”, it says.

John bumps his arm against Sherlock’s, the leans close to his boyfriend to say, ‘You’re amazing.’

Sherlock feels like John is undressing him with that tone of voice. Before he can suggest that they give up whatever John has planned for the day in favour of getting naked at his flat in Guildford Lane, John gets to his feet and puts his hand out for Sherlock to take.

‘Let’s go book shopping,’ he says.

Sherlock takes John’s hand and they fall into step, side by side, heading east. The walk past the building works on Franklin Street and then right into Swanston, passing the array of strange confections that constitute the buildings of the RMIT. The architects of that cluster of buildings seems to have been inspired by the phrases ‘make it look like a set from Doctor Who’ and ‘no, no, no, more colour, MORE, think Ken Done but in geometric patterns!’. Sherlock has gained degrees from several more staid-looking Australian universities, but he loves the mad splashes of colour and fractal geometry represented by this young establishment. The buildings don’t merely proclaim ‘think outside the box’. They state, ‘blow up the box and make a social statement about community and alienation out of the remains. Or a tepee. That’s good too.’

They discuss the architecture, and particularly the green blob that looks like it’s eating the administration building, until they get to the State Library and pass the piece of street art that looks like a fragment of a classical roman temple being swallowed by the footpath, then cut up the eastern section Little Lonsdale Street. Little Lon runs alongside the south wing of the State Library. When they’re nearly at Russell Street, John stops in front of a bookshop.

Sherlock looks at the store name. _Embiggen_.

‘You know this place?’ John asks.

‘I’ve heard of it,’ says Sherlock, ‘But I haven’t been here.’

‘It’s from _The Simpsons_ , they tell me. That cartoon show.’

Sherlock has never watched that cartoon show. ‘Also Gulliver’s Travels.’

John just grins at him and tugs on his hand. ‘Come on in. Embiggen your mind.’

John leads and Sherlock is forced to follow. Once he’s inside, though, he forgives the not-even-English shop name, because this book shop – in a world where the presence of book shops is shrinking month by month, even in this book-loving town – is something special.

The walls are lined with sumptuous hardcovers and paperbacks about human sciences: philosophy, culture, art, neuroscience, design, history. Mycroft has talked about the politics books he’s bought here, and Greg about the book of classic rock album cover designs Mycroft bought for him. Mycroft never mentioned the sealed concrete floor and the dark wood shelving and the tall ladders reaching to the top shelves. This book stores smells like what people mean when they talk about the wonderful smell of books: it smells like parchment and ink and knowledge and the special way that writing communicates across time and space to strangers.

A title catches Sherlock’s eye and he dives for it, pulls from the shelf and leafs through it, eyes bright and animated with excitement. John leans over his shoulder to see.

The book is _The Beekeeper’s Lament_ , the cover depicting a beekeeper in a vast field of sunflowers. While John is looking at the back of it – it’s about the state of bee populations in the United States – Sherlock sort of coos and falls onto another book, which he plucks out to examine. That one is called _Honeybee Democracy_.

‘It’s a study of honeybee society,’ says Sherlock, in a tone that indicates he has discovered the lost Lassiter’s gold reef. And then he reaches for a third book – _The Beekeeper’s Bible_ – before he makes himself walk away from the growing gap in the shelf. He finds a chair to sit on and is eagerly leafing through the tomes while John disappears briefly.

A moment later, John is sitting next to him, looking at the flyleaf of a book of his own - _The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching, and the Birth of Modern Surgery._

‘Oh. John Hunter. Fascinating man,’ says Sherlock.

John nods. ‘I’ve had this on order for a while. They texted yesterday to say they had it in at last. Found one of those you want?’ he asks, nodding at the bee books.

‘All of them,’ says Sherlock. Then he looks around at the row of seats stretching beyond where he and John are sitting. ‘Why is this bookshop set up like a meeting room?’

‘They’re part of that Laneway Learning thing,’ says John, ‘Those one hour introductory lectures and workshops they do. Little Mule down the road hosts them as well. Martha talks about taking part in it sometimes. She reckons she could do an hour on Exotic Dancing for the Older Woman.’ He grins wickedly. ‘Greg reckons Mycroft should do one on Tying the Perfect Windsor Knot.’

‘He would probably take more than an hour and not let anyone leave until they’d tied a Windsor, a half Windsor, a Pratt and a bow tie to his satisfaction.’

‘You know, I think people might actually pay to do that.’

‘They probably would.’

‘You could do an hour on deduction.’

‘I’d rather do rooftop beekeeping. Or you could do a class.’

‘Yeah, because people really want to know how to triage a street scene after a car bomb… oh Christ,’ John’s face falls, ‘Sorry. Sorry this stuff just pops out sometimes.’

Sherlock doesn’t know what prompted that unexpected observation – only that John’s expression was suddenly and briefly the same one he had on the tram a little while ago. Inward-looking and sad and haunted. But just like then, after he’s put his treasure trove of bee books on the floor, Sherlock places a hand on John’s wrist. Last time John smiled at him. This time he seems a bit less certain, but Sherlock rubs his thumb over John’s skin reassuringly.

‘Don’t be sorry,’ says Sherlock, ‘Not for my sake.’

John takes a slow, deep breath. Exhales. ‘Sometimes, I just get… flashes. They’re random. No reason for them. I’m not really upset, I’m just remembering. I make other people uncomfortable sometimes, though, when I mention this stuff.’

‘Other people,’ says Sherlock earnestly, ‘Are idiots.’

‘I’m beginning to see that,’ says John softly.

Sherlock leans over to kiss John, and then he bumps their noses together before withdrawing just a little. He whispers: ‘You’re not. An idiot, I mean. I don’t want you to censor yourself for me. I want the whole John Watson.’

‘Looks like that’s what you’re getting,’ says John. His smile lifts the corners of his mouth, and the curled ends of his moustache, and crinkles his eyes, and even his ears a little bit, so that his whole face is smiling. ‘And just so you know. I want the whole Sherlock Holmes, too. The deductions and the bees and the cuddling and your little poison garden and the two of us moving too fast and everything.’

That is such a relief, because Sherlock doesn’t know how to give less than his all, but he thinks for the first time maybe his all won’t be too much. He thinks that John is someone who doesn’t see his all as a burden, but as a gift, just as he sees everything in John as a gift.

‘Let’s buy our books and go,’ says John, lifting his wrist with Sherlock’s hand still resting on it, shifting his grip so that the can kiss Sherlock’s fingers, ‘There’s a place I want to show you.’

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Embiggen Books is one of my favourite Melbourne bookshops:  
> 
> 
> And I love my Market Lane Coffee.  
> 
> 
> And here's a taste of weird RMIT architecture  
> 
> 
> ANd the sinking library sculpture.  
> 


	10. Beeswax

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John takes Sherlock someplace special, and reveals a secret part of himself. Sherlock's heart speaks in Morse code. Then there's sofa sex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All my love and thanks to Atlin for helpful suggestions and for Rodin. And for everything else too. <3 you Atlin!!

Sherlock very much wants to deduce where John is taking him, and he very much wants to be surprised, and he very much wants to impress John by working it out ahead of time and he very much wants John to be the one to show the place, whatever the place is, to him.

He also very much likes striding along Swanston Street at John’s side but also dropping back from time to time because John has a way of _marching_ like a purposeful and sexy motherfucker, but then John realises Sherlock has dropped behind and _shortens his stride_ so that Sherlock catches up, and overall Sherlock wants very much to reach their destination and very much hopes it will be someplace where he will be able to pull John close and kiss him stupid. Because Sherlock already feels fairly stupid with wanting to kiss John _all over_. _Naked_ John. Oh. Yes. _That._ He wants John naked and to be kissing him all over, with his palms full of the fullness of John’s truly excellent arse. Yes he does.

John grins at him – a crinkling of his eyes, a lifting of the moustache - so that Sherlock knows that in some way he has just articulated those thoughts. He thinks on it, and remembers making a noise. A small noise, a bit of a low grunt, perhaps with a half tone of growl in it. Also, John caught him staring at his arse. That was probably a dead giveaway.

John drops back to Sherlock’s side, shoulder-bumps him subtly. John’s hip brushes briefly against the very upper part of Sherlock’s thigh. The brief contact makes Sherlock walk taller, jauntier. The corner of his mouth tucks in, in that little smile that he thinks isn’t obvious, but it totally is to the man who is already attuned to it.

‘Just down here,’ says John, and he darts ahead, doing his Secret King of the World sassy walk. It’s so deliberate that Sherlock’s little smile breaks out into full view. He follows from two paces back, and is reminded of the Rodin statue, Age of Bronze, at the V&A. Sherlock has an uncanny capacity for recall. While he trails and admires John’s walk, he calls up both the statue’s ripe rear endage and John’s luscious bare arse from last night and then kind of superimposes them like slides in his mind’s eye.

Conclusion?

John’s arse = work of art.

It’s also better than the Rodin, because Sherlock is allowed to succumb to the temptation of squeezing the backside he’s currently following, unlike that one time at the V&A, which saw him thrown out of the gallery into a rainstorm (an attempt he still considers worth the risk).

They cut across the stream of humanity flowing down from Flinders Street Station, into a small arcade. Light streams down through the high, arched, stained glass ceiling. Cathedral Arcade, it says at one end in colourful glass, although the arcade is in a building across the road from and apparently unconnected to the great cathedral.

A few fashions stores are embedded in the L-shaped space, all much more interesting than the Subway outlet along one side. Three lifts are next to a staircase that Sherlock knows leads up to an eclectic selection of shops. He knows this building, of course. The Nicholas Building as a reputation for its creative tenants, taking advantage of the surprisingly low rents of a building that must be too much expense and/or bother to refurbish. Asbestos, he wonders, or the heritage listing making it an awkward proposition? On that first floor are a poetry bookshop, a shop selling beads and buttons, and Retrostar, a resource for vintage clothing, though he hasn’t much use for the band T-shirts, which are not for the kinds of bands he likes. Hendrix, Marley and Led Zeppelin are not his thing.

Sherlock considers the board of tenants as they wait for a lift to arrive. They are not heading to the first floor, or John would have taken the stairs. What are the other options? Art gallery? No. Jeweller? No. Harold and Maude, with its handcrafted Victoriana and gothic décor? No. Not the small press, not the acting studio, not the walking tours office and definitely not the Japanese silk store. Then what…?

The lift stops at the third floor and John leads them out and into the tiled corridor. A few small posters advertising a gallery exhibition on the eighth floor are stuck to the wall. John leads Sherlock to the left, and through a large door to another corridor.

Sherlock knows this floor is inhabited by some clothing designers, a very tiny gallery and the aforementioned acting studio, but it’s clear that John is not taking him to a shop or an art gallery. He is not visiting a friend.

Furthermore, John is very familiar with this place. He isn’t examining the un-modernised, vintage elements of the building – not the 1920s interior tiles, nor the evidence of the old mail chutes that once took letters to the ground floor for collection, and not even the door with the gold letters “Private Detective” painted on the stippled glass panel – and he knows where he is going with such a direct and purposeful tread.

They are here for something personal to John. Something private, given the way his mouth has tightened (the moustache is kind of bristling, and Sherlock wants to run his fingers over it to soothe it back into place, to soothe the man underneath it) and his eyes have become guarded. His body language, in all, has turned more inward, as though John is becoming heavier, more compact – an easier place to defend. The last time Sherlock saw John’s body language do that was at the tram stop, when he was worrying that he was _too intense_.

John takes keys from his pocket and opens a battered door, painted black, right next to the acting studio. The room beyond the door is narrow and long, and bathed in light from the large window at the end of the room. Through the window, Sherlock can see Flinders Street Station. Further beyond is the grey and tan fractal architecture of Federation Square. The wide, brown Yarra River flows between the square and the Botanical Gardens, where both European and Australian trees flourish. The tower of Government House rises above the treeline, with the state flag fluttering to indicate that The Governor is In.

John has a room in this building full of creators. Sherlock was not expecting that. He _loves_ that he was not expecting that.

‘So… ah…’ says John, ‘This is the place I wanted you to see. My… other place. I do stuff here, a few evenings a week. My weekends off. It’s… I…’ John stops.

Sherlock turns in a circle to look at the framed photographs and posters on the walls, and the photographs scattered over a drawing table, and on the other side of the room, a pair of Oxford brogues that have been dyed and polished sit the top of a small bookshelf, which is itself placed beside a three-seat sofa.

One wall is full of photographs of Melbourne – close-ups in vintage tints of cups of coffee with frothy cremas; attenuated shots of buildings against blue skies and rows of iron lace in creamy whites and Brunswick greens and ochre reds; bold studies of street art and tiny, confronting sculptures that are hidden down alleys or tucked away in plain sight on major roads.

On the opposing wall, one poster shows a crisp, hyper-realistically coloured field of autumn leaves on the ground, the colours ranging from pale yellow to a deep, almost bloody red. Text flows around the image: _After the explosion, they lay in pieces on the ground._ Next to it is a poster of a winter tree, bare limbs reaching out like so many bony fingers. This one reads: _Distributing rations to the Afghan villagers._ A third displays the Yarra River flowing wide and dark, buildings clustered along either bank and two rowing teams paddling towards the camera while an oncoming rainstorm crowds the sky with clouds. Scarlet letters trickle down each side of the river with the message: _Bleeding out._

Sherlock turns again, more slowly, trying to take it all in, because there is _so much John_ in this room. This room is rich with the scent of leather and shoe polish, wood and glue, fresh coffee and subtle moustache wax. It’s rich with the images that John has chosen – there is no doubt that John has taken these photographs, matched them with those words, made the frames in which they are displayed.

He ceases to turn and looks now at John, who is watching how Sherlock is captivated by the things he has revealed here.

‘After I was shot, my therapist wanted me to take up something creative to express myself,’ says John. ‘She said it would help. I tried blogging but I hated it. I never had anything to say. Then I started taking pictures of things.’

‘None of these pictures are of England.’

‘No. I took some back then, did the captions, but they upset my parents. My sister said it was sick of me to write the things I did. I think she’s the one who burned my stuff when I came out here.’

‘Your sister is an idiot.’

‘I guess she thought she was looking out for Mum and Dad.’ John sighs. ‘Anyway, I started again, but I don’t tell anyone about it now. I fiddle with the colour on the regular photos and print them out here. The posters, when I’m done with the text, I get printed up at one of those online printing places when I can afford it.’

‘Is your therapist right?’

‘I don’t know,’ said John, ‘But I like doing it.’

‘And the shoes?’ Sherlock asks, but then he answers for John, ‘Your army pension combined with your Captains of Industry income only goes so far, when you have the house rent and this room to pay for. You picked up these shoes at a garage sale and re-dyed them for your own use. Greg can’t give you mate’s rates all the time.’

John’s seems to be unfurling from the tight space he had drawn himself into. ‘Greg showed up in a pair once, and I liked the look. He gave me some pointers on how to apply patina paint myself, and I’ve just started experimenting. So. Ah....’ He gestures around at the space. ‘This. This is my… my, ah, studio, I guess. This is where I come to make stuff. Get Afghanistan out of my head when it’s getting in.’

Sherlock walks up to the posters and examines them more closely still. He traces a finger over the perfect joins of the frames. His palm hovers above the words in the images, as though they’re a kind of braille. _This is how his brain sometimes filters the world._ Sherlock has his own filters, of course, but nothing like this. His brain deconstructs the world into its component parts. John, at least sometimes, builds tenuous bridges to other memories.

The non-captioned photographs are interesting compositions too. Digital pictures, printed out on the colour printer Sherlock can see on the drawing table. The tints and saturated colours speak of someone playing with their perceptions. Sherlock prefers to see the world plain and clear, but John’s photographs have a way of highlighting unexpected elements of his subjects, emphasising curious aspects. Sherlock finds the distortions make him reassess the reality of the subject and rather than detracting from the reality, he’s seeing new aspects he might have missed. The pattern of bubbles in the crema of a coffee, and granules of sugar clinging to a spoon; a tiny addition of a tiled 80s-style computer-game icon in the middle of a brick wall that is itself a riot of overlapping graffiti.

Finally, Sherlock picks up the shoes in his elegant hands and turns them over. He knows John is watching him, so he slowly trails his fingers over the toes of the brogues.

The brown leather has been bleached pale and then painted over – glossy black toes and heels merging into red over the rest of the shoe. He sniffs at the polished leather and presses it against his cheek, testing the suppleness of it. He holds it away then, tilting the shoe to catch the light and showing off the shine and shifting light of the colours. He imagines the shoes on John’s small, steady, lovely feet, and immediately he feels his cock thicken.

He licks the tip of the shoe, not to taste it, but to see what John will do. From his periphery vision, he sees John lick his lips, his blue eyes fixed on Sherlock’s tongue.

_#oralfixation #ilovehismouth #andhisfeet #andalltheinbetween #Johnfixation_

Sherlock determines there and then that one day, he will ask John to wear those shoes, and the tweed trousers, and to then fuck stark naked Sherlock to mewling exhaustion. He doesn’t care which house or which piece of furniture hosts the happy occasion, as long as John is wearing those gorgeous shoes which he himself made divine.

He puts the shoe down carefully, angling it to sit exactly as it was before he took it up. He turns to John, who is breathing heavily, leaning slightly towards him.

Sherlock is breathing heavily too. ‘Why did you show me this?’ Sherlock asks, not a demand but an appeal.

‘Because you said you want to know me,’ says John, ‘And I want you to know me. And you said this wasn’t too fast. It isn’t. Is it?’

‘No.’ Sherlock stands very close to John, and every warm exhale of John’s breath is warmly inhaled by Sherlock and given back. ‘Thank you,’ says Sherlock, and he takes John’s hands in his – hands that made these beautiful things – and he kisses the fingers of one hand, then the other. ‘Thank you.’ He turns John’s hands over to kiss the palms of them too, and then he holds both John’s hands against his diaphragm and looks into John’s eyes, the better to communicate how he feels.

And how does he feel? Humble. Amazed. _Greedy_. Not for _more_ , exactly, because John has already given him so much with this, but hungry to absorb it all and understand it all. This is a gift that will take a long while to fully appreciate, and Sherlock intends to take every second of that while.

‘It’s _beautiful_ ,’ he says, voice pitched to rumble right through John’s skin, communicating by osmosis. ‘ _Thank you_.’

John leans in and up and kisses Sherlock like it’s necessary to his survival. There’s a lot of communication by osmosis going on then. John’s hands flatten against Sherlock’s diaphragm, they cup his ribcage and read Sherlock’s heartbeat like Morse code.

.. (I)

.-.. --- …- . (love)

-.-- --- ..- (you)

At least, Sherlock hopes John does. John is ex-army. Surely he can read the distinctive tattoo that Sherlock knows can’t really be hammering in his chest but nonetheless feels like it must be.

Sherlock is breathing against John’s ear, against his skin, and at this point he doesn’t know if he’s saying the words or not. They seem redundant, given the apparent stuttering of his heart. John is stroking Sherlock’s face and pulling his body close, and they’re going from zero to a hundred in thirty seconds and neither has any desire or need or intention to put on the brakes.

‘Lock the door,’ says John, and Sherlock whirls to tug the key from the outside lock, slam the door shut and turn the key on the inside. By the time he’s facing John again, John has tugged the string on a simple blind so that it falls over the window, shielding them from the flat rooftop of the building next door which is outside the window.

John reaches for Sherlock who is reaching for John and then they are kissing and tugging at buttons and pushing and pulling at waistbands and sleeves and trouser legs. Shoes are off, outerwear, underwear, though it’s all a bit haphazard and frantic and untidy. Garments are flung over the coffee table (and some land on the floor) but there’s a bucketful of who the fuck cares? As they lick and kiss and suck at each other’s skin, returning again and again and again to kiss mouth to mouth, to pepper each other’s faces with lips and endearments and soft encouraging sounds.

They are on the sofa now, John straddling Sherlock’s lap, and then Sherlock sprawled over John, who is underneath him, head thrown back, while Sherlock sucks his cock, and then Sherlock is the one underneath, his legs bent up and John over him, licking at his nipples, kissing his throat and chest, frotting against his body with curling hips and sturdy thighs pressed to the back of Sherlock’s upraised legs. John’s cock is leaking wetly over Sherlock’s belly and crotch, just as Sherlock’s upthrust prick is slippery with pre-come.

‘Lube,’ gasps Sherlock.

‘Fuck,’ growls John, because he hasn’t got any.

Sherlock’s hand gropes up and behind him towards the bookshelf, and John, seeing what Sherlock saw up there, reaches up and snatches at the tin of pure beeswax that is normally used for his shoes. He fumbles the lid and so Sherlock grabs hold of it, twists the lid off and throws it aside. John digs his fingers into it the whitish-yellowish wax, and then Sherlock does, and they drop the rest of the tin on the floor while they kiss and moan and rub each other, letting body heat soften the wax, spreading it with eager hands over bellies and cocks. John smears beeswax between Sherlock’s arse cheeks, and Sherlock eagerly pulls his knees up higher, saying _yes yes yes fuck yes John please yes…_

Then John is angling to thrust his cock smoothly along the crease of Sherlock’s arse, his thick, heavy cockhead dragging back and forth over Sherlock’s hole. He braces his knees on the sofa cushion, changes his angle and slows down. Speeds up. Slows down. All the while Sherlock is holding his bent legs wide, his back is arched, his head thrown back and he’s lost all his words, grunting out _unh unh unh unh_ in rhythm with John’s thrusts.

John speeds up again. He kisses Sherlock, buries his face in Sherlock’s neck and sucks a love bite into the skin, and keens as Sherlock wraps his arms around John and flexes to meet each thrust.

They shift again, seeking greater friction, and finally, while John’s cock slides between Sherlock’s warm-wax-slippery arsecheeks, Sherlock’s cock likewise slides against John’s stomach. The scent of beeswax rises between them, mingling with the scent of John’s moustache wax (which _oh fuck, oh Christ, oh hallelujah,_ Sherlock loves) and the scent of aftershave and sweat and sex until it’s a perfect heaven of heavy male perfume. Sherlock holds onto John’s shoulders and thrusts his hips up against John’s body, pushing his cock through the slickery pressure of their abdomens. He can feel the hairs of John’s stomach, all sticky and wet, against the underside of his shaft and foreskin and crown, and it’s fucking glorious. He pushes harder, faster, and he’s saying something, god knows what. All the while, John is holding onto him too, kissing him, thrusting down in the perfect curl so that his thick cock is slippery-hugged by Sherlock’s plush arsecheeks, wet-sliding over his hole, the head bumping up against the end of Sherlock’s coccyx before sliding back into the snug, hot perfection of the enfolding, yielding wonder of that arse…

And John muffles a shout in Sherlock’s neck, and thrusts and thrusts and thrusts, and Sherlock pushes up into the pushing down, he makes a whimpering sound, a cry as he curls his hips to rub and rub and rub his cock against John’s stomach, and his arse around John’s cock, and _fuck, oh fuck, oh fucking hell hallelujah, Jesus yes yes yes yes fuck yes god fuck yes_ and…

They collapse against each other, Sherlock’s legs falling open wide, his arms too, no longer able to maintain their grip across John’s shoulders and back; and John melting onto Sherlock’s sprawled body, wet groins sticky-pressed together, John’s face nuzzling into Sherlock’s neck, kissing and licking the place so recently bruised. His moustache tickles Sherlock’s skin, and Sherlock lifts his chin so that John can do some more of that.

John wipes his hands on his own thighs and then caresses Sherlock’s shoulders and arms, his face, his hair. Sherlock makes an effort to get his noodly legs to move, and manages to drape them around John’s legs, hooked over his calves. Sherlock’s arms wrap around him too, and he swipes waxy fingers against John’s spine before he burrows his fingers into John’s hair.

And then, giddy with happy hormones, drunk on the scent of beeswax and come, the two of them start to giggle. Then they kiss, and kiss some more, and laugh their sated delight and kiss again.

‘Just so you know,’ says Sherlock suddenly, breathlessly, between kisses, with John’s wonderful body pressed so languidly close to his, ‘I play the violin, at all hours when I’m thinking.’

‘Mmm?’ replies John, interested, but his mouth is otherwise occupied with that soft spot under the point of Sherlock’s jaw.

‘I know practically nothing about politics and a ridiculous amount of chemistry. Couldn’t give a toss about astronomy but I have a comprehensive knowledge of botany, especially plant poisons.’

‘I remember your toxic garden,’ says John cheerfully, before he sucks on Sherlock’s earlobe.

‘I know too much about unsolved crime, especially murder. That bothers a lot of people.’

‘Not me,’ says John, stopping at last to look at Sherlock’s face. Sherlock’s expression is eager and focused. ‘What's this all in aid of?’

‘Trying to tell you everything about me. Everything.’ Sherlock looks like he wants to burst with all the things he wants to say.

John strokes his cheek and smiles at him. ‘We’ll get there,’ he says.

‘I want you to know me,’ says Sherlock.

‘I will,’ says John, confident that it is true, or will become true in time.

Sherlock’s hands – soft with beeswax – slide from John’s shoulders, down his spine, and come to rest on John’s bum. He squeezes that backside gently, then pats it, then squeezes again. ‘I was once thrown out of the Victoria and Albert Museum for patting the bottom of a Rodin statue.’

John’s sudden surprise dissolves into a fit of giggles. That sets Sherlock off again.

‘The statue had an excellent bottom and as it turns out, I couldn’t resist.’

John laughs harder, and so does Sherlock, who squeezes John’s bum again.

‘Your arse is definitely better.’

‘Well have at it then,’ John encourages him, ‘I promise I won’t throw you out.’

Sherlock, taking him at his word, enjoys himself for a little while, fondling and kneading and patting John’s excellent arse, and John just sighs happily, snuggles in, and enjoys the attention.

‘I also like bees,’ Sherlock murmurs into John’s ear.

‘Mmm. Bzzzzzz,’ mumbles John, in sleepy good humour.

 _#heisperfect_ thinks Sherlock muzzily, _#moreperfectthanperfect, #../.-.. --- …- . /-.-- --- ..-_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Nicholas Building, where John takes Sherlock, is where I have my own writing space. Mine's larger than John's, as I share it with three other writers. The other shops/studios I mention are real. Some info and pictures are [here](http://www.couturing.com/the-nicholas-building/)
> 
> This is the building from the outside:  
> 
> 
> And this is the Cathedral Arcade:
> 
>  
> 
> The Private Detective sign was taken down about a year or so ago. It never was a private eye - an old interactive computer game was filmed here an eon ago, and it was a remnant of that gumshoe detective program. Here's a picture I found though:  
> 
> 
> Painting patina on shoes is a thing (thank you Atlinmerrick for telling me about it!) and there are the shoes John has painted.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Atlinmerrick took me to the V&A to show me the Rodin statue, Age of Bronze, which we agree has an appealing Johnness about it. It's a warm and inviting statue, so full of quiet confidence, radiating a kind of languid peace as he seems to be having a stretch after getting out of bed. The V&A has a special guard on it, probably because the temptation to pat its lovely bum is quite strong and almost universal. This image is of a reproduction, which I've chose because it shows all the lovely angles of it.
> 
>  


	11. Hipsters in Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Sherlock share a post-coital beverage - and then discover they have mutual acquaintances. Who are on the rooftop beyond the window. Well, Melbourne does have a reputation for having only two degrees of separation. On a rooftop over Melbourne, then, a few more secrets are spilled, abrupt confessions are made and then... dancing!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if I need to translate any Aussie/Melbourne-speak for you. For starters:
> 
> uni=university  
> starkers= stark naked  
> MCG = Melbourne Cricket Ground, a hallowed sportsfield for cricket, AFL football and other sports since 1853.
> 
> Melbourne, by the way, really does have a reputation for having only two degrees of separation. that's probably because the creative types all live in the inner city and tend to hang out at the same types of places. I'm forever discovering friends of mine know each other - and not just in Melbourne! (hi Vixis!)
> 
> Pictures to follow at the end.

The post-coital snuggling is getting on a treat. Sherlock keeps rubbing his palms over John’s Rodin-esque bum, almost like it’s a meditation, and not dissimilar to the way that John had likewise patted his arse only… last night, was it?

Okay. So. Mutual arse-men, it seems. Sherlock approves. So does John, who wriggles a bit, snuffles into Sherlock’s neck and licks at his clavicle. Sherlock enjoys the tickle of John’s moustache against his skin. The weight of John’s body on his is just this side of comfortable, and soon may be on the other, and there’s no room on the sofa really to unsquish, but Sherlock doesn’t want to move.

Sherlock is holding the here-and-now as though it is a thing of delicate crystal – fragile and ephemeral; destined to melt away even if it survives shattering. Sherlock’s experiences of fleeting moments of perfection are all like this, except for that first one. A spring day: he is four years old, in the park. A bee lands on his hand and tickles. That’s all he can remember, and it annoys him still, that he doesn’t remember more.

Life has offered other moments of perfection and since the first time he realised he didn’t properly remember the bee in the park in the spring, he has been pausing to file all the other moments away in his mind palace. It’s what it was first built for, before it became a tool for other things. He has returned to those memories time and again for respite when the world outside has proven, time and again, it has no liking for him, even when it can find a use for him.

Therefore, Sherlock is filing this all away in his mind palace. The weight of John Watson, the feel of John’s moustache on his skin; the warmth of the day and how the cooling ejaculate on their skin warms again with the ambient temperature. The narrow bar of light slicing in through the gap between the blinds and the wall, full of dancing dust motes. Shadows flicker through the beam as birds flutter past. The scent of sweat and beeswax and dust, faint notes of aftershave and soap mingled with them. The sounds coming in – someone is in the actor’s studio next door, setting out chairs. A pigeon beyond the window coos, and another replies. A collection of voices rises up from Federation Square – some kind of meeting or protest, though it sounds cheerful rather than angry. Sherlock can’t be bothered to determine the words of the collective sound or the music behind it. Somewhere there’s the chime of midday, and another of a church bell, and somewhere a tram dings. A motorbike thrums to a halt at the lights, and the clip-clop-clip-clop of a horse and carriage on Swanston Street seems to come from another time. He can hear a radio, and footsteps on the rooftop beyond the curtains, a voices murmuring in nearby studios, and a helicopter flying over the MCG.

He can hear John breathing, and his own breaths in sympathetic rhythm.

 _#thesoundofhappy_ he thinks. He wonders if a feeling like this can possibly be sustainable. He decides that even if it isn’t, this feeling, this moment, everything in it, will always be in the mind palace now. A warm and sunny studio filled with John and him, a forever-room that he can come back to whenever he wants, whatever the future holds.

John stirs. He kisses Sherlock’s chest, and his chin, and John’s eyes crinkle with the smile that lights up his whole face. ‘How about a beer?’

‘Mmm,’ says Sherlock, for to speak will reveal that John in that position is squashing his diaphragm, and that would make John move his incredible eyes and marvellous face from such proximity, and Sherlock likes John’s face and eyes just where they are, so close to his, ta very much.

John, oblivious to the squishing, just looks at Sherlock with besotted, smile-crinkled eyes. ‘God you’re beautiful,’ he says softly. ‘Can I take a picture? Would you mind?’

Sherlock shakes his head, aware of the mess of curls his hair has insisted on becoming again. He must look a fright, but if John insists on approving of it, he will choose not to mind.

John, mindful now of where his elbows are pressing, reaches for his phone and while his legs are interlaced with Sherlock’s he takes photos, not of Sherlock’s reclining nakedness, but of his eyes, of the unruly sex hair. Sherlock gazes at John, steady and soft, wondering what John’s camera is seeing in those eyes of his that never know what colour to be.

John finishes, puts the phone aside. Another kiss, to the tip of Sherlock’s nose, and John gets up and crosses the room. He moves easily, no limp, with a kind of swaggering grace that is even more appealing nude than it is clothed. His Rodin-bum in motion is even more obviously superior to the one in the V&A.

John opens an old fridge by the window, and Sherlock can see a shelf of boutique beers from around the state cluttering up two of the shelves. Little Creatures, Holgate, Mountain Goat, Matilda Bay.

When John squats, nude, in front of the fridge, balanced on the balls of his feet, bum hovering above his heels, Sherlock forgets the beers and looks at John’s bare back. The scar high up, the straight spine, the delicious curve of his bum; his scrotum a fuzzy bump visible between his legs. Perhaps just a hint of the head of his cock there, though that might be wishful thinking. Sherlock peers for a good long while to be sure. He still isn’t.

Sherlock’s fingers twitch with wanting to fondle John in that position. He files the idea away for later. Or sooner. Depending on opportunity.

‘Minimum Chips?’ asks John, waving a bottle of Matilda Bay American pale lager at him, ‘Or I’ve got a Mountain Goat steam ale here. Oh, and an organic cider from Willie Smith’s. The Tasmanian guys.’

Sherlock opts for the cider, John for the steam ale, and they sit together on the sofa, warm and naked and redolent of sex and contentment.

John clinks Sherlock’s bottle with his own. ‘Cheers.’ He takes a swig, then bounces to his feet – Sherlock enjoys watching various parts of John jiggle with the action – and fetches a small tub from under a table, on which sits a kettle and a little toaster oven. John pours some cold water from the kettle into the tub, grabs two clean Chux wipes from a packet and takes the lot over to the sofa, where he proceeds to give himself a brisk rubdown. He throws the other clean wipe to Sherlock. Thus they sort of clean themselves up, while they talk and drink and grin at each other.

Sherlock can’t keep himself from touching John from time to time; simple, light presses of his fingertips to John’s thigh, his rib, his wrist, his hair. John keeps his leg crooked up on the sofa and softly pressed to Sherlock’s knee. They talk about graffiti and microbreweries and the fractal architecture of Fed Square and how Melbourne’s beloved AFL football isn’t proper football at all – Australians call proper football _soccer_ – though their native game is strangely graceful with all those high leaps to mark the ball, and Sherlock admits he has become a fan of the very short shorts and John grins and says he’s kind of into the split leg running shorts himself.

They grin and laugh and rub fingers that are cool-damp from their bottles along one another’s bare thighs.

A man on the rooftop outside the window starts to sing in a robust tenor along with recorded music.

_If you like pina colada, and getting caught in the rain!_

‘That’s a terrible song,’ complains Sherlock.

‘Most people think it’s romantic,’ says John, but he looks amused.

‘A song about two people cheating on each other only to discover that they’re cheating on each other with each other? And then they laugh about it?’

‘You’re right,’ says John, laughing now, ‘It’s a morally reprehensible song.’

‘Morality has nothing to do with it. It’s simply _illogical_. I can’t imagine either party would find that situation funny.’

‘Sometimes it’s laugh or commit an act of violence, I guess.’ John’s expression becomes a little more world-weary then. He runs his thumb and forefinger down the dewy, half empty bottle of beer and contemplates some memory or thought.

 _He has secrets still_ , thinks Sherlock, who doesn’t mind. John has already shared so much of himself by bringing him here.

 _I have secrets too._ There are things Sherlock hasn’t told people here, although Mycroft knows. He never thought to tell anyone. He gets trouble enough for how he sees the world without throwing fuel on the fire, but suddenly he wants to tell John. He frowns and examines his own thought processes, trying to determine if he is self-sabotaging here, testing this new thing to destruction as early as possible, rather than enjoying what they have for as long as possible.

But as much as he is aware he is already very much in love with John, Sherlock Holmes has never been a sentimental man. A man of strong emotion, yes, but he’s also long refused to be a person who pretends that things are different to what they are. Perhaps it is self-sabotaging, but he also thinks he owes more honesty to John than he’s yet given.

‘John,’ he says, and his suddenly dark tone, sober and serious, immediately demands John’s attention. John looks at him, curious, open, not judging but slightly concerned. ‘John, there are things you don’t know about me…’

John cocks his head and seems to relax a fraction. ‘Have you killed anyone?’

Sherlock blinks at the interruption which has partially derailed his train of thought. ‘I… no. That is… but. No.’

‘I have,’ says John.

‘Your duty in the army doesn’t…’ begins Sherlock, and then he falls silent. ‘Sorry. It’s not for me to tell you how that feels.’

John’s eyes are soft again, the burgeoning guardedness melting away. ‘I can’t imagine anything you could ever do that would make me not l-like you.’

‘It’s more a matter of what other people think,’ says Sherlock, ‘Which is how I came to be sent to Australia.’

‘I thought you were sent to fetch Mycroft.’

‘Surely you don’t think that was ever going to happen?’

‘Not now I think about it, no.’

From outside, the tenor is onto a new song, the singing even rowdier than in the last one.

_Hello Daddy, Hello Mom, I’m your ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-CHERRY BOMB!  
Hello world, I’m your wild girl, I’m your ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-CHERRY BOMB!_

And then the voice stops long enough to shout, ‘If you’re in there, Johnno, come out and do the chorus!’

John turns his face towards the window. ‘I’m starkers, Stamford!’

‘Please tell me it’s because you’ve got company!’ The recorded music is switched off.

John grins at Sherlock in proprietorial delight. ‘Yeah,’ he says quietly, to Sherlock rather than Stamford, ‘I got lucky.’

Stamford, who has not heard this, continues with, ‘’Cos if you’re just in there wanking over John Monash’s moustache on the hundred dollar bill again, you and I are going to have to have a serious talk.’

John laughs. ‘Like I ever see a hundred dollar bill,’ he calls back.

A second voice, Italian-accented, chimes in. ‘You spend it all on your fancy shoes!’

Sherlock has been watching John closely all through this exchange. _He talks to them often. Friends. Well. Acquaintances. He keeps looking at me, though, like he’s… proud. Oh god, he wants to…_

‘Come on, let me introduce you.’ John starts pulling on his jeans and shirt, shoving Sherlock’s clothes at him. Sherlock is unconvinced, except for one thing. He recognises the voices out there, and they are the voices of people who are not friends, per se, but who have not been… enemies.

He dresses and pushes his fingers through his hair, attempting to look more like he usually does. John stops to get a comb from Sherlock’s jacket and combs Sherlock’s hair back from his forehead, while Sherlock bends slightly, fussing with the tendrils with his fingers.

‘Sorry, I can’t get it to sit right. That’ll have to do,’ says John.

Sherlock pushes the heels of his hands against his temples and sweeps them back, and thinks that John, who obviously prefers his curls, is impossibly perfect for instead stopping to restore Sherlock’s hair to the style that Sherlock prefers, at least in public.

Dressed – John insists they put their shoes on – the leave the room (John locks it behind them) and walk down the corridor till they find the door that leads onto the roof. They go out into the sunshine where two men are fussing with a video camera.

‘Mike, Angelo,’ says John, ‘This is…’

‘Sherlock!’ say the two men simultaneously.

John blinks.

Sherlock nods. Imperiously.

Mike Stamford, a stocky man with an open, friendly expression, just laughs in appreciation. ‘Johnno, you sly bastard. Remember I told you about the IT guy I thought you should meet? That’s him.’ And then Mike grins at Sherlock. ‘So you finally went to Captains of Industry like I said you should.’ Mike’s grin is back on the gobsmacked John. ‘He resisted for ages after he finally moved to Melbourne. Said he didn’t want to hang around where his stuffy brother worked.’

John blinks. He looks at Sherlock, who is both alarmed and embarrassed by this turn of events.

Then John shrugs. ‘I should have listened to you, then. Good thing _you_ did.’ This is addressed to Sherlock, delivered with a warm and approving nod, and Sherlock also relaxes.

‘I take it you know Angelo too,’ says John.

‘Yes,’ he says, ‘Apparently, Melbourne is a small world.’

‘Forget six degrees of separation,’ says Stamford earnestly, ‘Lucky if it’s two degrees, in Melbourne at least.’

‘Mikey introduced us, when we were at uni a few years back. He’s a fucking champion, is Sherlock,’ says Angelo, ‘He got me off an assault charge.’

‘By proving you were burgling a house six suburbs away,’ says Sherlock drily, ‘I’m not sure I was that much of a help.’

‘Nah, it’s good, bro,’ says Angelo cheerfully, ‘They gave me parole after a month – first offence and all that – and I’ve been keeping my nose clean. Mikey and me are doing videographics for Swinburne uni now, and my uncle wants us to do a YouTube ad for his restaurant. What was hilarious though,’ says Angelo, addressing John, ‘Is that the coppers thought since Sherlock knew so much about the job on the house, he must have been there himself. We had to drag Mikey here in to give Sherlock an alibi.’

‘Not for the first time,’ says Mike Stamford, like it’s a brilliant running joke.

John arches an eyebrow. Mike says, ‘Sherlock’s got a gift for knowing what’s really going on. The cops never appreciate it though, do they, Sherlock?’

Sherlock grimaces.

‘Does that happen often, then?’ John asks, but he isn’t shocked. He is amused and… impressed. Sherlock doesn’t think he will ever get the measure of the man.

‘That I try to help the police and they decide I must have done the crime? Yes. It’s what I was trying to tell you, about why I was sent out here on the pretext of fetching Mycroft home. The Met had decided I was a potential murder suspect. My father deemed it best to get me out of the way until they took my advice and arrested the real killer. I’ve been neglecting to return to the family estate ever since.’

‘Did they? Arrest the real killer, I mean?’

‘Eventually. After he’d committed two more murders that I clearly could not have committed, being in another country at the time.’

‘Holy fuck,’ says John, voice filled with admiration and wonder.

‘You don’t think I’m a potential serial killer then?’

‘Potential…?’

‘You did ask if I’d…’

‘God, no, that was me being a moody bastard. _You solve crimes_. You actually solve _actual crimes_. What a bunch of fuckwits the cops were for not listening to you. Christ, Sherlock, you are _amazing_.’

And Sherlock stares at John staring at him, their gaze a bridge from one heart to another of absolute adoration. Mike and Angelo might as well not exist, because that gaze is like a cone of silence.

Mike and Angelo, unwitnessed, grin indulgently at the love-soppy pair and turn back to filming a panorama of the city from their vantage point, a fuller view of cathedral, Fed Square, the Yarra, Alexandra and Botanic Gardens, St Kilda Road, Flinders Street Station. Meanwhile, behind them, a grand scene is playing out in a smaller scale.

‘So you really don’t think I’m…’ Sherlock makes himself say it, ‘A creeper?’

‘Fuck, no,’ says John vehemently, ‘I think you’re fucking _brilliant_.’

‘Precious few others do.’

‘Most people are too uncomfortable in their own skins to see what you do as the brilliance it is. I’ve been dead once, you know,’ and John says it so blithely that it makes Sherlock wince, ‘It changes your perspective, that. I love how you see everything so clearly. How you see _me_ so clearly. If other people can’t realise how brilliant you are in doing that, it’s their loss.’

It’s already been said that Sherlock is a not a habitual liar. His problems all stem from his unguarded and often tactless honesty. John is the first person to really understand that. Sherlock shows the world who he is all the time, but nobody has ever properly _seen_ him. They assign motivations and causes and schemes to him that just aren’t his. But here is John Watson, so captivated by the fact that Sherlock sees him and then tells John what he sees – but it’s John who sees _him_. And, what’s more, for a miracle, _likes what he sees_.

Sherlock doesn’t think he’s ever met a smarter or more wonderful or more perfect human being than John Watson.

What he means to say then is, _you are the cleverest man I know_. What he says is:

‘I love you.’

Mortified, he looks at John and blinks so rapidly it’s like watching a stop motion film. A stop motion film in which the object of his desire looks at him in surprise, and then smiles, and his blue eyes grow wide and soft and deep like a the night sky full of stars, and he looks at Sherlock like he too is so in love that it gives Sherlock the courage to continue.

‘I’m sorry. I mean. I’m not. I’m not sorry that I love you, and I am quite certain that I do, but it’s too soon to say it, obviously. Obviously too soon. I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. You don’t have to say it too. You don’t have to feel it either, not now, not later either, but it’s said now and I won’t take it back. Unless you want me to take it back. Do you w…’

‘So it’s not just me, then,’ interrupts John, ‘Who’s head over heels, I mean?’

Sherlock blinks like it’s morse code. SOS, perhaps. Or, more likely, _#../.-.. --- …- . /-.-- --- ..-_ _again._

John has stepped closer and the bridge is now a single step wide.

‘I don’t want you to take it back, Sherlock,’ says John. ‘I think I’d like you to say it again. Here, I’ll start this time. Even though it’s probably a bit soon, and we hardly know each other, but… but I feel that we sort of do, you know? That this is just… finding each other again. And it’s not logical, but it is… I think it is love. I know it’s not enough to say I like you. And I’m not saying this just because you did it first. I’m saying because… yeah. Yeah, I do. I’m in love you with you already, Sherlock.’ His eyes crinkle as a joyous, boyish grin takes over his whole face, and he even laughs, a breathlessly happy sound. ‘I love you.’

Sherlock quivers from head to toe and he says, ‘Good. Good. Good. That’s good. That you… too. That you… me … too…’

‘Hey,’ says John soothingly, and he holds Sherlock’s hand in his, ‘I didn’t mean to break you.’

‘ _IloveyoutooJohn_ ,’ bubbles out in a rush, and then Sherlock kisses John, and he kisses and kisses and kisses and kisses and kisses and kisses John (who is kissing and kissing and kissing and kissing and oh he keeps on kissing and kissing back) until they both have to gasp for air. John is holding Sherlock close, and peppering little kisses all over the side of his face and his hair and his forehead, and he’s laughing with delight.

When Angelo clears his throat, it hardly slows them down. Sherlock is aware that Angelo and Mike Stamford are sharing a conspiratorial smile, as though they are personally responsible for all this glory, but frankly he gives less than a single fuck about them right now. Not even a fraction of a fuck. Because John Watson is in his arms and says he loves him back and the world has suddenly shrunk down to the two of them.

Stamford, the cheeky bastard, puts the music back on – his iPod is plugged into a speaker on the rooftop – and ramps it up as loud as he can.

 _Ooga ooga ooga cha-ka, Ooga ooga ooga cha-ka_  
_I can’t stop this feeling, deep inside of me_  
_Girl, you just don’t realise what you do to me_

Giggling, John takes Sherlock in his arms and starts to dance. Sherlock loves to dance, and he hasn’t told John this yet, and here they are dancing.

_#perfecthumanbeing #helovesme #holyfuckhelovesme_

John sweeps Sherlock into a dip, and Sherlock is falling, it’s dizzying, but strong hands hold him and catch him and suspend him above a rooftop looking over this sunny city.

Then John swoops him up again and they are swaying together.

_I-I-I-I’m hooked on a feeling, I’m high on believing, that you’re in love with me!_

‘Maybe we got here in a hurry,’ murmurs John into Sherlock’s ear, ‘But we can take our time now, don’t you think? Take as long as we like?’

‘Oh god, yes,’ Sherlock replies, and he is holding John close but not tight, because he’s not afraid John’s going to get away, or let him fall, or change his mind.

They dance, and Mike Stamford takes a picture of the two of them against the sky, and he and Angelo coo over the result while choosing a flattering filter. The final picture is an entwined silhouette whose every graceful line tells a story of _together_.

Mike uploads it to his Instagram account, hashtag: _#hipstersinlove_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the MCG:  
> 
> 
> And this is Federation Square:  
> 
> 
> And this is Flinders Street Station:  
> 
> 
> John Monash on the hundred dollar bill:  
> 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first coffee shop AU. How delightful that there's even a regular tag for that!
> 
> And look here. [ #consultinghipsters ](http://www.redbubble.com/people/narrelleharris/works/15763295-consulting-hipsters)
> 
> And also - a new Tumblr where I can post material on the Melbourne places they visit, related artwork and other things Relevant To Our Interests: [captainsofjohnlock](http://captainsofjohnlock.tumblr.com/)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover Art for 'Captains of Industry' by 221b_hound](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6111267) by [missmuffin221](https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmuffin221/pseuds/missmuffin221)




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